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TJisrioiNr, 



IN A LETTER TO 



Hon. [. 0. 



U. S, Senator from New York. 



JUDGE EDMONDS. 



PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 
■> Nos. 119 & 121 Nassau Street. 








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Class L U 6 "^ 
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EECON'STEUCTIOIT 






XJNIO^, , 



IN A LETTER TO 



Hon. [. 0. MORGAN, U. S. Senator from New ki 



JUDGE EDMONDS. 



PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 

Nos. 119 & 121 Nassau Street. 

1867. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



The question stated — 

Its determination depends more upon the people than on Govern- 
ment, ............ 1 

Preparation for its due consideration, 3 

Anxiety for Reconstruction, 4 

Very earnest and almost universal in the Loyal States. 

What is wanted, . 5 

Not merely a restoration of a nation, but a harmonious union of the 
■whole people. 

The olistacles in the way, 6 

Embracing herein the physical condition of the country, and the 
mental and moral condition of the people to be aflected both North 
and South. 



At the South, 6 

Five classes — 

1. Loyal men, who have been such from the beginning, . G 

2. Those who have become such since the war, including 
herein recent immigrants, ...... 9 

3. The poor Whites, whose condition has been and is one of 
poverty and ignorance, . . . . . . .10 

4. The Negroes, . 14 

Their good qualities, IG 

Their faults, 18 



IV 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



The rights they are to enjoy, , , 

To bear arms, .... 

To be "witnesses, 

To be jurors, 

To be voters, ...... 

To hold office, 

The duties and responsibilities that must follow. 
Their aptitude for these rights and duties, 

5. Secessionists, including herein the Slaveholder, and the 

characteristics of both, 

Their error as to the feeling at the North, 

The effect of slavery on them, 

Eeadiness to resort to force, 

Ignorance of the power of public opinion, . 

Castes and classes among them, 

Social condition, 

Estimation of labor, 

Southern women, 

Their politics, ...... 

Doctrine of State Rights, .... 

Fugitive slaves, 

Extension of slavery, .... 

Sectional patriotism, .... 

Effect of peculiarities, .... 

No general law can reach all these classes, 



At the North, 

Three classes — 



1. Anti-slavery men. 

What they have accomplished, 
What they now demand, . 



Sympathizers with Secession, 
From mere party considerations. 
From belief as to the capacity of the Negro, 
The alternatives they present, . 



3. The Conservatives, 
What they desire. 
What deprecate, . 
Their feeling toward the South, 
Change of feeling since the war, 



PAGE 

22 
23 

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24 

. 25 
28 
22 
23 

29 
30 
31 
32 
35 
38 
39 
40 
41 
42 
42 
44 
45 
4G 
48 

52 

53 



53 

53 
54 

54 
57 
55 
50 

58 
58 
58 
59 
60 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Magnitude of the work of Reconstruction, 
The end in view, .... 
Too much expected from government, 
The lesson of past revolutions, 



"What is to be done ? .... 

No general scheme yet suggested by any one, 
Time and events are making suggestions. 



What has already been done. 



"What remains to be done, . 

A guaranty against further mischief, 
As to peace and good order, . 
As to poUtical action, . . . 
The only guaranty thus far — 
Free Suffrage, . . , 
Military Government, . . 
Efficiency of both, 
Are they States still ? 



Summary of the evils and the remedies. 
Security to civil and political rights. 
Protection to the loyal, 
Suppression of violence and disorder, 
Reorganization of labor, 
Reform of social system, . , 

Education to be diffused. 
National patriotism engendered, 
Self-Government restored, . 

Conclusion — 

Confidence in the result. 



PAGE 
62 

, 63 
63 

. 6-i 

66 

. 66 

68 

. 68 

68 
. 68 

68 
. 72 

71 
. 71 

69 

. 74 

76 

. 78 

77 

. 76 

79 

. 79 
80 

. 80 
80 



81 



Appendix — 

Testimony of Generals Schofield, Sickles, "Wood and Thomas as to 
the condition of the South, 83 



TO THE 

Hon. EDWIN D. MORGAN, 

U. S. SENATOR 

FROM NEW YORK. 



Dear Senator : 

There is one feature in onr Institutions in this country wliicli 
foreiacners, from their Avant of familiarity with it, find hard to 
understand, and -whicli our own people, from their great famil- 
iarity with it, do not seem fully to appreciate. 

That feature is, that every great principle affecting the whole 
people and the national welfare, is settled, not hy the Govern- 
ment, but by the people. 

The Government, in all its branches, executive, judicial and 
legislative, is but the instrument of carrying into effect the de- 
termination of the actually ruling power — the will of the people. 

That determination is made by the masses. It is public 
opinion that is the ruling power with us, and first or last, it is 
sure to exercise its supreme control ; sometimes in one mode and 
sometimes in another; sometimes by affirmative action, and 
sometimes by abstinence from action ; sometimes rapidly and 
often slowly, and only through the long deliberation of the 
people. But, in the end, as sure as destiny, displaying and ex- 



2 QUESTION STATED. 

ercisinty the sovereign power of the State. It "svas thus, that 
after a lapse of some seven years after the close of the war of 
the Revolution, our national constitution was adopted ; thus, 
that many questions, then unsettled, have since been put to rest, 
and thus, at a more recent period, that a gigantic rebellion has 
been quelled, and slavery abolished throughout all the land. 

And it is thus that the great question now before us, namely, 
the Keconsteuction of our Uniox, is to be determined. 

In order to arrive at a proper determination, the whole people 
must be educated up to a proper understanding of the question, 
and to a just appreciation of any proposed remedy ; and that 
end is to be attained by a free interchange of sentiment among 
them all. It is thus alone that, from numerous sources, full 
knowledge can reach all, and thus alone that the union of 
opinion, so absolutely essential, can be attained. 

In this view of my duty at once, and my right as one of the 
masses, it is that I address you, clothed with ])ower, as you are, 
to act directly on the question, primarily to express my opinion 
to you as my representative, and yet, not without a hope that I 
may be able to assist others in arriving at a proper determina- 
tion of a matter iutinitely momentous. 



PREPAKxVTIOX FOR ITS CONSIDERATION. 



CHAP. 11. 

Preparation for its Consideration. 

As jou are aware, I was once an active politician. I shall 
never be so again, for ray " three score years and ten " are rap- 
idly creeping over nie. But when I was snch, during some 25 
or 30 years of my life, 1 happened to be so situated, as to have 
my attention called to the State Ivights Doctrine, as it cuhni- 
nated in the form of Nullification, in South Carolina in 1833. I 
was then a Democrat of the Jeffersonian school, fully believing 
in the State Rights Doctrine, as avowed in the Kentucky and 
Yirginia resolutions of 1T9S, but I regarded the claim as then 
asserted, that a single State had a right to nullify a law of Con- 
gress, as a heresy in conflict with those resolutions, and utterly 
incompatible with the continuance of the Union. It fell to my 
lot, in the Senate of my State, to defend those doctrines from 
that heresy. The debate was an earnest and protracted one. 
I encountered in it some very able minds. In order to prepare 
myself for it and to conduct it, as I did, I studied the doctrines 
as fully and as understandingly as I was capable of doing, 
and I then honestly believed that the distinction that I drew 
Avas right, and that the principles of those resolutions did 
not lead to Nullification and Secession, as it was then charged 
that they did. The reflection and the events of the ensuing 
period have satisfied me that I was in an error : that the dis- 
tinction on which I rested, was altogether too metaphysical and 
refined for the common understanding, and that the doctrine 
was a dangerous weapon in the hands of the enthusiast or the 
demagoi>;ue. 

I recall these things, Senator, to your recollection, not from an 
overweening desire of speaking of myself, but to show you that 
■what I shall say, is the legitimate result of the study, reflection 
and experience of at least thirty A'ears. 

And, now, alter this long, and I hope not inappropriate preface, 
I approach the subject of my letter. 



Al^XIETY FOK EECONSTKUCTIOX. 



CHAP. III. 

Anxiety for Reconstruction. 

Except among those at the South who are still Secessionists 
at heart, and a few sympatliisers with them at the North, I take 
it for granted, — nay ! I know, that all onr people are anxious for 
a reconstruction of the Union as it was before the rebellion, I 
do not mean a reconstruction alone of the nation, and a restora- 
tion of the national power over the whole territory once em- 
braced within its dominion, but such a reconstruction as shall 
bring back to us, in fraternal harmony, the seceding States, so 
that they may become States in full communion with the rest 
of us, and may sit down with us, as we of the North now sit down 
together, under the same flag, with the same nationality, with 
patriotism, not confined to a State, but embracing the wdiole 
Country, and aiming for the whole people at that equal station 
among the nations of the earth for which God has designed us, 
and which is so essential to freedom among men. I mean a 
restoration of Union, and not of the nation or its government 
onl_y. 

This, I believe, is what we want, and happy indeed will it be 
for us and for mankind, when such a restoration shall be brought 
about ! 



WHAT IS WANTED. 



CHAP. lY. 



"What is Wanted. 



But liow sliall it be brought about ? 

That is tlie great question. And it is one upon which it is 
the duty of every American Citizen to have and to express an 
opinion. 

It is to tliat I address myself. And, in doing so, I do not stop 
to consider the often mooted political refinements which are not 
of any practical importance. They involve raanj' of those subtle 
refinements which have already led our Southern people so far 
astray, and will be giving force to an abstraction, when, what we 
want is, what Bacon calls, good old-fashioned, ronnd-abont com- 
mon sense. What we want, is to look our difficulties squarely 
in the face, and encounter them, not by double distilled special 
pleading, which will " keep the promise to our ear and break it 
to our hope," but by a good sense, a sound sagacit}-, and such 
kindly charity as will draw all hearts and minds into unison. 
'SVe may all difl^r as to what the sun is, but we may all agree 
that it does sliine at noon-day, and govern ourselves accordingly. 
"We may have as many religious sects as we please, but we can 
all agree upon the divine injunction to love God and our neigh- 
bor as ourselves. 



THE LOYAL MEX. 



CHAP. Y. 

I propose to look first at the obstacles in the way of Eecon- 
struction, and second at the Kemedy. 

The Obstacles. 

I first direct your attention to the Soutli. 

There are five different classes of people there for -whom onr 
measures must provide, neither of whom can be overlooked, viz., 
those who have, through all the'struggle, been nniformly loyal ; 
those who were secessionists, but have now become honestly 
and truly loyal ; those who were secessionists all through the 
struggle, and are so yet, in fact ; the negro population ; and the 
lower class of the white population, who are known as " poor 
white trash." 

I approach this topic, with a full knowledge of the delicacy 
of the task. It demands an intimate knowledge of the social 
relations of the South, which can hardly be expected of a north- 
ern man, yet we of the North have got to deal with the subject, 
and dispose of it too ; and it happens that within the past six 
years, the very interior of the South has been more thoroughly 
and more generally penetrated from the North than ever before. 
We may, therefore, hope to be able to form an opinion not very 
far from being strictly accurate, and one not calculated to lead 
us astray. 

Section One. 

Then as to the Lioyal Men. 

And herein I include, not merely those who were resi- 
dents there before and during the contest, but also the large 
numbers whom our armies left behind them, or who have emi- 
grated there since. 

To the loyal residents, we owe a high and solemiU duty. 
They have a right to demand from us protection from the enemy 



THE LOYAL MEN". 



wliom we liave conquered, and from whom they have suffered. 
"We pride ourselves on our loyalty to the cause of tlie nation, 
and justly so, but it has been displayed by us without severe 
trials, and under no great difficulties, but amid the continuance 
of our wonted properity. Our soil has not been pressed by 
the footstep of an enemy ; our lands have not been overrun by 
moving armies or ruthless brigandage ; our homes have not 
been invaded, nor our families driven from their shelter ; our 
sons have not been compelled to take up arms and peril their 
lives for a cause which they detested ; our lives and our prop- 
erty have not been in liourly danger, and we have not been 
crushed beneath the tread of an insolent aristocracy, backed by a 
multitude of ignorant and debased dependants. But far other- 
wise has it been at the South. There loyalty has been displayed 
only at the hazard of all that man holds dear, and so displayed 
as to impose on us an obligation of protection from which we 
cannot and must not attem])t to escape. 

To the other class of loyal men at the South, who abided, or 
have gone there with a full reliance on our willingness and abil- 
ity to afford them protection, we also owe a duty. And tlie 
calls of that duty are the more imperative upon us, because their 
condition of peril and alarm would seem to be even worse now 
than it was during tlie war. 

All accounts — Congressional records, official rejwrts to the 
departments, newspapers, and private information — agree in 
saying, that there are very many places in the seceding States 
where neither safety nor justice are secured to loyal men, and 
life, liberty and propert}'', are forever in peril.* 



* The following account of a report recenily made in Congress, tells the 
story : 

•'The Connmittee had before them Generals Schofielcl, Thomas, Sickles, 
Baird and Wood. Tlieir testimony accompanies the report. It proves that 
lor the punishment of crime in the Southern States the Courts cannot be 
rehed on. Neither magistrates nor juries will do their duty; that this con- 
dition of things is growing worse rather than better; tliai, therelore, the 
General Government must interfere. 

" In the language of General Thomas, there should be established some 
supervisory authority in these State.s, with power to advise and insi;st on the 
inifiartial aiiniinistration of justice, acci'mpanied by sunicient force, if neces- 
sary, to imluce the people to feel that the authority is sulHcient to enforce its 
advice and instruction." 



8 



THE LOYAL MEN. 



And most lamentable it is, that very much of this state of 
things is owing to tlie Government of the nation. How this has 
become so, I shall have occasion to consider bje and bye. It 
is enough here to say that this fact makes the duty of protection 
the more imperative as it becomes more necessary, and that 
necessity is ]3artly of our creation. 

There is another consideration in this connection, of weight 
enough to demand our attention. Hitherto tlie tide of emigra- 
tion, fed from its inexhaustiljle sources in Europe, and which has 
brought its millions of sturdy men to our shores, has avoided the 
slave holding States, and reached the interior, either by the way 
of the Mississippi or through the coast States north of Mason and 
Dixon's line. Hence it was in a great measure, that in the 
extraordinary growth of the nation, the South lagged behind 
the North, and to such an extent, that the population of the 
latter became nearly two-thirds of that of the whole country. 
The climate, the soil, and the face of the country at the South 
were all calculated in the highest degree, to be attractive to 
the emigrants, and they have that attraction yet. But immi- 
gration would not go where labor was deemed a degradation, 
and now, when emancipation has removed that obstacle, it re- 
quires only an assurance of safety to life and propei-ty to turn the 
tide, a part of it at least, in the direction of the Southern States. 

So, too, it is with emigration from the Eastern States, which 
has hitherto in a great measure avoided the South, and ex- 
pended its energies in building up the empire of the West. 

Who is there that cannot see that in this emigration is a 
mighty element for the organization of the devastated South, 
and the binding the Union together in enduring bonds ? It 
wants but such security for life, liberty and property as we en- 
joy at the Korth, to have this element do its work. 

As matter of national policy, then, as well as of duty to lo_yal 
men, such security must be provided. By local institutions if 
we may ; if not then by the power of the nation. 



THE LOYAL MEN. 



Section Two. 



The Secessionists who have become Lioyal. 

Tliere are many men at the Sontli wlio earnestly became 
secessionists and ^YQve sincere believers in the right claimed 
by their ]eadei*s, and -who, having submitted the matter to the 
arbitrament of arms, are now as honest and sincere in submitting 
to the decision and in their willingness to become loyal Union 
men. 

But the misfortune seems to be that the moment, in the pres- 
ent disturbed state of the South, they avow themselves to be 
Unionists, they subject themselves to the same sort of persecu- 
tion as the others of the sanie political feeling, and in some in- 
stances, doubtless, more severe, because their inveterate enemies 
deem them to have added the crime of loyalty to that of being 
renegades. 

So long as they continue loyal, they have the same right to 
demand protection that the otherehave of whom I have spoken. 

Bat there is an additional element of danger in their case, 
namely, that they may be more easily drawn away from their 
loyalty, because too newly born with theni, to have the strength 
to endure the fiery ordeal to which it may be subjected, and 
they had never regarded secession with the abhorrence which 
was so characteristic of persistent unionists. To the one 
class, secession was a choice between divided allegiances, and 
nothing more. To the other it was abhorrent, as treason, and 
nothing less. To the one it was but n;»atter of policy. To the 
other it was a deadly aiid degrading crime. 

We shall doubtless find in this class, men who will reason in 
this wise : " Why should we continue to be loyal ? Thereby we 
sul)ject ourselves to this intolerable persecution — peace and 
safety are banished from our lives, and the government, to which 
we would fain be loyal, affords no adequate protection or en- 
couragement to be so." 

This mode of reasoning would bo perfectly natural, and 
equally natural would it be for them to return to their first love, 
or become neutral, or at least lukewarm in their loyalty. 



10 THE POOR WHITES. 

But that is not all. The very chance of such an effect would 
render persecution inevitable, as there would be awakened in 
the breast of their adversaries the hope that the sight of their 
sufferings might deter others from imitating their example of 
loyalty. 

There is no plainer dictate of policy or good sense than for ns 
to pursue such a course toward this class, as would arrest these 
retrogade attempts, and encourage the spread of this new-born 
national patriotism. 

Forgiveness and oblivion towards the past are the elements 
which lie at the very foundation of the line of conduct to 
be pursned. Such, we well know, w^ere the sentiments which 
prevailed in the mind of the lamented Lincoln — such the prin- 
ciple, which at an early day prompted the Act of Congress as 
to pardons to the erring ones, and such was the very general, 
nay, the almost universal feeling of the I^orth when the war 
closed. 

AVe never entertained in the Free States, except only in few 
and isolated instances, any such vindictive feeling towards the 
South as they had almost universally towards us ; and when the 
war ended, nothing would have been more pleasing to us, than 
to have f:»und the whole South readj' at once to return heartily, 
cordially and seriously to the Union, and in entire good faith 
acquiesce in the decision which the result had produced. 

If that feeling has, by this time, diminished in strength, or if 
the number of those who entertained it has decreased, or the 
number of those who had an opposite feeling been augmented, 
it is deeply to be deplored, and the cause of the change ascer- 
tained. 

Section Theee. 

The Lower Class of TVbite luliabitants. 

Here the difficulty of a northern man's appreciation of the 
actual state of things is very great, for we have no class among 
ns, by comparison with whom we can form an accurate con- 
ception. 

We have among us, to be snre, a poor and an ignorant class, 



THE POOR WHITES. 



11 



but we have none npoii whose poverty and ignorance there lias 
been erected so peculiar a superstructure of prejudice and error, 
as renders them unfit for self-government, and reduces thetn to 
such a condition of vassalage to the higher classes, that obedi- 
ence, in political matters, becomes a necessity. 

Poor, never enjoying the comforts of life, and often wanting 
its necessaries, they have nevertheless learned, from the teachings 
of the higher class of whites, to look down upon the colored 
laborer with contempt, and to regard toil as a degradation. 
With our poor people, the ownership of land and a house is the 
great object of life, and, when attained, works a wonderful 
change in the individual. lie becomes at once a participant in 
the administration of justice, and the internal and closely apply- 
ing government of the country, and thus, in every essential 
political respect, the full equal of his fellow white men. But 
with this class at the South, the great object of life has been the 
ownership of a negro, for thus alone could they hope to better 
their condition, to escape the degradation of labor, and make 
even an approach towards an equality with those around them. 

They were likewise afflicted with the blasting influence of the 
institution of caste, M'hich, from England to Ilindostan, and in 
all ages of the world, has been a curse upon man, and retarded 
his progress. 

The line of demarcation between the three classes at the 
South — the slaveholder, the non-slaveholding whiles, and the 
negro — was clear, distinct and unmistakable. 

As in all cases of caste, there was an enduring struggle of the 
lower to rise higher, and of the higher to keep the lower down. 
Every effort of the poor white, therefore, to ascend, encountered 
a determined effort at repression from above, and the great mis- 
fortune was, that there was no hope of ascension except through 
the crime of ownership in man. 

It has been often and truly said, that the great curse of slavery 
is not so much in its effect on the slave as on the master. This, 
in the slaverholder, was reflected back on the class below, and 
carried with it all its distortions. So that, the poor whites, not 
only encountered the hostility of the upper class in their efforts 
to rise, and had hopes of rising only through the commission of 
a heinous sin, but were taught to follow the example and imitate 



12 THE POOK WHITES, 

the life of those above tliem, who were disphaying all the evils 
inflicted upon them by the institution of slavery. 

This division into castes (of the two upper classes of whites) 
was not, as in England and Ilindostan, the result of positive 
law, but was a moral one, voluntary in its character and the re- 
sult of social oro-anization. So that the hio;lier class could not 
resort to the force of the law in its efforts at repression. It was 
driven to its moral power — and that was exerted by keeping the 
lower class in as profound ignorance as possible, and instilling 
into their minds the grossest errori. 

Oar common soldiers, in their penetration into the South, 
were over and over aojain astonished at the icrnorance of these 
people in matters known familiarly to the very commonest of 
our people. 

But the best evidence of their ignorance and of their degrada- 
tion, both moral and mental, is shown by the census. 

Take, as an illustration, the following facts from the census 
statistics of 1860: 

In l^ew York, out of a population of 3,880,735, there were 
984,905 who attended schools, or about 1 in 4. 

In Ohio, out of a population of 2,339,511, there were G05,G56 
who attended schools, or about 1 in 4. 

In Illinois, out of a population of 1,711,954, there were 405,- 
121 who attended schools, or about 1 in 4. 

In South Carolina, out of a population of 703,708, there were 
46,590 who attended schools, or about 1 in 15. 

In Georgia, out of a population of 1,057,280, there were 94,- 
187 who attended schools, or about 1 in 11, 

In Yirginia, out of a population of 1,576,318, there were 154, 
903 who attended schools, or about 1 in 10. 

In Mississippi, out of a population of 791,305, there were 60,- 
524 who attended schools, or about 1 in 12 ; and Ohio, which 
was only three times as populous as this State, had nearly ten 
times as many at school. 

"Wealth and education seem to have travelled together. The 
States of New York, Ohio and Illinois, with an area of about 
61,000,000 acres, had a valuation of real and personal property at 



THE TOOK WHITES. 13 

$3,900,000,000, and the States of South Carolina, Georgia and 
Virginia, with an area of about 72,000,000 acres, had a valua- 
tion of $1,986,000,000, or, in other words, with one-sixth more 
territory, the Southern States had only about half as much 
wealth. 

Illinois, which was a savage wild, long after Virginia had be- 
come a populous territory, had in 1860, over 13,000,000 acres of 
improved land, and about 8,000,000, acres of unimproved; and 
Virginia had about 11,0:)0,000 acres of improved land, and 
over 19,000,000 unimproved. In ten years, from 1850 to 1860, 
the quantit}' of improved land in Illinois had increased about 
8,000,000 acres, and in Virginia, in the same time, the increase 
was about 1,000,000. In Indiana, the increase had been 
3,000,000, and in South Carolina, 500,000, though in 1850, the 
latter State had over 12,000,000 acres of unimproved land, and 
Indiana about 8,000,000. 

It is upon the laboring class of the inhabitants that reliance 
must be placed to change this state of things. In the mean 
time, these facts show how fiir short this class is of the education 
and energy wliich have been so successfully cultivated elsewhere. 

Many of them are voters, and have a voice in the government 
of the country, as potential as the best instructed and most 
elevated. And, as it is an inflexible law of the elective fran- 
chise, that power always centres in the lowest class of the 
qualified voters, it is not difficult to appreciate the result. If 
they vote of their own free will, it is easy to see how igno- 
rance and prejudice may ride triumphant. If, on the other 
hand, they yield to the influence which surrounds them, and 
which has thus far, been powerful enough to create this institu- 
tion of " castes," it is as easy to see how they become mere 
instruments for increasing the power of those above them. So 
that the influence of slavery, if not shown directly by their 
votes, is shown by the increase of the power of the slave-holder 
caused by their submission to his influence. 

Ijut it may be urged, that as-slavery has ceased to exist, this 
state of things has ceased, l^ot so. Men are not clay in the 
hands of the potter, to be moulded at once into any shape we 
may desire. They can be changed only in process of time, and 
it is often a long time before any change of circumstances can 



14 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 

wear out the impressions of earlj training. It is so with these 
people. They are yet living ; some of them possess the elective 
franchise ; tlieir voice is, and as long as they live will be, to a 
certain extent, influential in the government, and they have and 
will have the physical power to disturb the peace of the commu- 

An indisposition in them to do so must be created, and tliat is 
not only necessarily the work of time, but must depend for its 
development and progress upon their surroundings. Let them 
be surrounded in tlie future, as they have been in the past, and 
what ho]5e is there that tliey will be aught else than the submis- 
sive instruments of a higher class, or the marauding disturbers 
of the public peace, — goaded on to a greater desperation by tlie 
loss of the only instrumentality — that of owning slaves — by 
which they ever hoped to rise above their degraded position ? 
From among them, the ranks of the "Regulators" may be easily 
recruited, and to their poverty, pillage may be acceptable as 
means of abundance, and murder palliated under the name of 
patriotism. 

Section Foue. 

The Colored Population. 

This class numbered at the census of 1S60, about 4,000,000, 
and when we look upon the Declaration of Independence, not 
as a " glittering generality," but as a fact, interwoven into the 
very lite and soul of our Republic, \ve can readily comprehend 
how high and imperative is the duty resting upon us, of 
finishing the work which our fathers of the Revolution began. 
My purpose, however, now is, not to look upon the question in 
that aspect, but rather practically, to consider what the present 
condition of this class is, and how they are to be dealt with, so 
that they may form integral parts of a restored Union, and how 
they can be best made to aid iti its reconstruction ? This in- 
volves, of course, the inquiry how they can be best secured in 
the enjoyment of their new-born freedom ? For unless that is 
provided for, there is no alternative, they must either again be 
slaves or cease to live in our countrv. 



TUE COLORED PEOPLE. 15 

This is a broad and bold assertion, and yet let ns ponder and 
see if there is or can be any other alternative ? 

If this is so, as we have already determined that they shall 
not be slaves, and as their expulsion from the country is out 
of the question, there is and can be nothing remaining to us but 
to secure them in the enjoyment of their freedom, in the lirst 
instance, and to elevate them, in the end, to the dignity and res- 
ponsibility of citizenship, with all its privileges. 

Before, however, due provision can be made for them, we must 
understand who and what they are, and what are their capaci- 
ties for elevation. The humanitarian may say " they are men 
and my brothers," but the political philosopher must go further, 
and ask how the instructed Yalentine can elevate to an equality 
with himself, the wild man of the woods, his brother Orson. It 
may be easy to admit the right to that equality — but how to 
achieve the enjoyment of it, is quite another question. 

To achieve the possession of that right for the white man, cost 
our fathers seven years war, in the revolution. To achieve it for 
the colored man, has cost ns four years war in our day. To 
secure it to the former then, was the work of years afterwards. 
How to secure it to the latter now, is the grave question pre- 
sented to us. 

At the close of the Kevolutionary "War, we had earned the 
freedom of 3,OD0,000, but it was eight years after that, before we 
put into operation the institutions by which its continued enjoy- 
ment was secured. We have now earned emancipation for 
4,000,000. Two years have elapsed and it is not yet fully ascer- 
tained what we shall do to secure its continuance. 

For a government like ours, so complicated in its machinery, 
so efficient, yet so well balanced, a people of advanced intellect 
is required. To give such institutions to the Arabs of the Desert 
or the serfs of Dahomey would be folly. Half a century of South 
American independence shows us that it may be too much for 
even a higher race than these. 

We must therefore know — and know intimately, too— if we 
would act wisely and well, and not run wild upon an abstrac- 
tion — what is the condition of those for whom and on whom we 
are to act. 

One consideration is too important to be overlooked. The 



16 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 

3,000,000 of the past were capable of acliicving their own eman- 
cipation, and framing their own institntions to secure it. The 
4,000,000 of to-day are capable of neitlier, but impose both tasks 
upon us. The difference is indeed very great, but it merely 
warns us not to be discouraged by tlie difficulties we may 
encounter, but now, as of old, bring to the work a patriotism 
that shall be at once calm, dispassionate, disinterested and ener- 
getic. 

The Southern negroes are by nature gentle and kind. They 
are fond of children, of music and of flowers. They are ever 
governed more by sentiment than by reason, more the creatures 
of emotions than judgment. They are devotional. Instinct- 
ively' they recognize a God and their dependence on Him. Un- 
like many white men, devotion is not a matter of duty with 
them, but a delight. They worship because the}' enjoy it. They 
are eminently hilarious and joyous, enjoying the present and 
doffing aside the future and bidding it pass. 

The Freedmen have made good soldiers. Obedience, the first 
duty of a soldier, came easy enough to thcnh But they have 
also shown endurance and courage enough for their position, 
and understanding enough to comprehend the necessity and 
requirements of discipline. 

The temptation for them to engage in insurrections was enor- 
mous, yet they abstained, showing that they had not been so 
brutalized, even by oppression, as to have the spirit of revenge 
uppermost, and while, perhaps, they showed a want of organized 
action, it appeared that they reasoned sound enough to realize 
that an insurrection Avould not better their condition. 

For a long time their ears were filled with stories — and from 
those too, who had thus far, been their only teachers — of the 
mischievous purposes of the Yankees in invading their land, yet 
they had the good sense to know better, and judgment sound 
enough to enable them to appreciate our real object. 

There were very many of the people of the North, who, at 
the beginning of the contest, went into it merel}^ for the preser- 
vation of the Union, while there were many whose object ever 
was the abolition of slavery, and who saw that such must be the 
inevitable result. It would seem as if the Freedmen from the 
first regarded the contest as really for their freedom. 



THE COLORED PEOPLE. 17 

So too, man}^ of the wliite people of the South expected efficient 
aid from that political party which had always stood by tliein 
on the platform of fidelity to the compromises of the constitu- 
tion. The Freedmen, however, were never carried away with 
that delusion. 

What was it — instinct or judgment that told them, that in 
this great upheaving of the people, freedom was speaking to the 
earth again ? At all events, their conclusions were more accu- 
rate than those of their masters and those of a great many very 
intelligent people of the North. And whatever it was that 
enabled them to reason thus soundlj^, we cannot overlook the 
fact that they were able to do so. 

Then, again, think of what great service they were to us 
throughout the whole contest. How many instances there were 
of their protecting individual northerners, at great hazard to 
themselves I How faithfully they labored to help on our armies I 
How true and faithful they were in bringing intelligence and in 
guiding our soldiers in unknown lands! "What induced this '^ 
Was it an appreciation of the value of their services to the ad- 
vancement of their own cause ? If it was, no white man could 
have appreciated it better. Now, whether this was intuition or 
intellect in them God knows ! But whatever it was, it com- 
mands our respect and is too important to be disregarded. 

So, too, see how they have met the new condition in which 
they have suddenly found themselves ! So different from that 
to which they had been accustomed all their lives ! The wonder 
is that they did not run wild in their exhiliration, and, casting 
aside all law and order, indulge their sensuality without stint. 
It will not do to measure them, at such a moment, by our stan- 
dard. Can you or I, Senator, realize the feelings of a man of 
mature age, who, all his life long, had been trodden under the 
foot of bondage, and bound submissive to the will and the lash 
of another, suddenly emancipated and allowed to stand erect in 
the presence of God and his fellows, a man and the equal of man? 
Every nerve would vibrate, every vein would throb in the wild- 
ness of joy, and it would be more than an ordinary mind that 
would preserve its equipoise and avoid some outbreak of emotion. 
Yet, when that magic proclamation went fortli, like the divine 
command through the prophet of old, announcing " liberty 
2 



18 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 

through all the land," there was no outbreak. Deep and still 
flowed the current of feeling in tlie Freedman's heart, and silent 
gratitude to God absorbed all otlier emotions. 

I tell you, Senator, tliere must be a good deal in a people who 
can thus receive such an event. 

True, there were a good many at first who indulged their 
natural indolence, who wandered about to realize an unknown 
pleasure, that of freedom of locomotion, and who shared M'itli 
some white men, whom I have known, in the idea that liberty 
consisted in doing what they pleased ; but, as time flowed on, 
and they became wonted to their new and untried condition, 
habits of order and industry have become engendered, and, in 
the short space of two years, they have generally become more 
peaceable and self-supporting. It onl}^ requires proper treat- 
ment of them by the Avhite man to make them wholly so. And 
why not ? Heretofore they supported themselves and their 
owners too, by their industry, and why not now be capable of 
supporting themselves alone? And is the experience of the last 
few years empty of all lesson for the future ? 

In another respect, too, the same space of time has shown their 
susceptibility to improvement. All accounts agree in proclaim- 
ing how readily they resort to, and how much they advance 
under, the opportunities afforded them of education. We have 
thus been taught that it had not been their inaptitude for learn- 
ing, but their masters' dread of it Mdiich had kept them in igno- 
rance. 

Here, then, are elements of humanit}' on which it would seem 
that a noble superstructure might be built, but, unhappily, there 
are countervailing faults. 

The negro has, by nature, little or no energy. He is consti- 
tutionally indolent, and, content with the enjoyment of the pres- 
ent moment, he cannot awake to action, unless aroused by some 
impulse outside of himself. He has no conception of that fiery 
energy which characterizes the genuine Yankee, and which sent 
him to an unexplored continent and thence to make its wilder- 
ness bud and blossom like the rose. He looks with amazement 
on restless activity and wonders why it cannot be still. 

Nor has he any conception of the imperious obligation of 



THE COLORED PEOrLE. 19 

truth. Ever readj- to draw on his itnagination for his facts, he 
can hardly understand how any one can sacrifice life for it. 

lie has the cunningness and the mischievousness of the 
monkey, and allows treachery and deception to spring np in him, 
as if it were a natural growth, as, to a certain extent, it is. 

And as to the greater problems in the arts and sciences, the 
discovery and realization of which have marked the progress of 
the white man, tliey are all " Hebrew-Greek " to him. They 
are simply incomprehensible. 

These are respectively what may be deemed natural traits of 
the Negro's organization, but there are others too important to 
be overlooked, which are the result of training and the life 
that he lias led. 

If he is ever blood-thirsty or cruel, it has been because he has 
been taught to set little store by human life, and learned how 
efficacious a means death sometimes is of removing the cause of 
apprehended evil. He has often seen slaves saved from the 
death penalty simply because of their money value, and as often 
seen a dreaded negro slain, notwithstanding the pecuniary loss, 
— the fear of the culprit's power of mischief l)eing the palpable 
cause of the difference. If he had been by nature cruel or re- 
vengeful, so many years would not have passed without servile 
insurrections, especially in localities where the blacks greatly out- 
numbered the whites, and the temptations of the war would not 
have passed without some uprising somewhere. 

He is not by nature so indiff'erent to danger, as to be bold and 
hard}', nor yet so sensitive to it as to be timidly shrinking, j^et 
he has seen so much of the fear which has ever been uppermost 
in the slave master, and so much of a blustering, boisterous man- 
ner, assumed for a disguise of timidity, that he learned to be at 
once bragging and cowardly. Yet, when away from the con- 
tamination of such example, those traits soon wore off", and wlicu 
guided by intelligent officers, he made a passably good soldier. 

Those, however, who have not had the advantage of such 
training, show now, even in their state of freedom, a timid yield- 
ing to the aggressions of the white man, which is the result, at 



20 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 

once, of their nature and their earlier training. "Were it other- 
wise, thej Avould soon learn that thej are numerous enough for 
self-protection. 

The Negro has very little self-reliance. He has so long been 
in a state of dependence upon the will of others, that it will take 
much time and experience to teacli him that reliance upon his 
own powers, whicli is so essential to making him a full grown 
man mentally and morally, as well as physically. 

He is not provident. He is by nature neither ciqndus nor 
avidus, neither grasping nor miserly, but content with present 
enjoyment, and taught by the experience of a whole life, to de- 
pend upon the providence of others, he is now, as a general 
thing, unfit to care for himself, and becomes an easy prey to the 
designing and better trained white man. It will only bo 
through much time and much suffering that he will learn the 
necessary lessons of a saving industry. In the meantime, t e 
necessity of a " Freedman's Buueau," and the frequent appeals 
made to the North for relief to the "■ suffering blacks," tell the 
reality of this tale. 

He is profoundly ignorant. His master has deemed it a 
" necessity of the position " to keep him so. This ignorance, 
joined with his natural spirit of devotion, has filled him with idle 
superstitions, which are ever affecting his actions. 

The removal of this ignorance lies at the very foundation of 
all hope of his elevation. While it exists, it must aft'ect every 
relation of life with him, and make him ever dependent upon 
others and submissive to their guidance. This will be particu- 
larly manifest in his political action, whenever he becomes 
clothed with the powers of an elector. Without the knowledge 
to enable him to have a will of his own, and with his long trained 
habits of submission to more instructed minds, it is difficult to 
conceive how it can be safe to trust the destinies of the country 
in his hands ; for however well inclined he may now be, we can 
have no security that in time, his ignorance may not direct his 
power to the advancement of the wildest and most fanatical of 
objects. 



THE COLORED PEOPLE. 21 

!Naj, more ! Ma)^ it not, with some reason, be apprehended 
that he might in time be even arrayed on the side of secession ? 
His freedom once fully secured, all cause of controversy with his 
former master, which now keeps him so steadily in sympathy 
with ns, would be removed. Living at a distance from ns, and 
in the midst of people who arc now, as much as ever M'cd- 
ded in licart to their secession sentiments, it wonld be most 
natural that he should partake of the public opinion around 
him. Hearing only one side ot the question, such would natu- 
rally come to be his views. Ignorant of the nature of our 
government, and even of the geography of the country, he would 
have but little idea of the danger of doctrines, which it has taken 
more than half a century in time, and much hard lighting, for 
many of even a more instructed class among us, to learn to con- 
demn ; and yet, unweaned from the long-wonted habit of sub- 
mission, it is not really extravagant to anticipate the possibility 
of his being yet found arrayed on the side of secession. 

Equally difficult is it for us to conceive how the negro can se- 
cure the enjoyment of his other rights, civil and social — until he 
has learned what those rights are, what are the responsibilities 
the possession of tliem imjiose upon him, and the nature and 
workings of the machinery by which their enjoyment can be 
secured. As at present instructed, he knows but of two modes, 
— force, and an absolute dependence upon others. Such an 
emancipation is nominal only. The reality of dependence exists 
as much as ever — its form alone is changed. He must learn the 
use of the tools which freedom has put into his hands, or he 
will be apt to cut himself and others. 

He must learn to think and judge for himself in this matter, 
as we all have to. This is self government, which he has never, 
or at best, very imperfectly learned, but in which we have been 
instructed by long training, from early childliood to full-grown 
manhood. We exclude from the elective franchise all under 
twenty-one years of age, because we require the instruction of 
that period as a basis for the exercise of the right. Of what 
use will the twenty-one years be to the negro, if at that age he 
has all the ignorance of childhood ? 

There are four kinds of action in which the American citizen 
has to engage ; to bear arms, to be a witness, to serve as a juror 



Iil5 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 

and to vote. These are at once rights and duties — privileges 
and responsibilities. And the exercise of them, while it marks 
his position as a citizen, is ever at its work of fitting him for 
that exercise. 

We would not put fire-arms into the hands of a child, or trust 
a fool with edge-tools. And we must take care, when we enable 
the negro to bear arms — that is, when we accord to him the con- 
stitutional right " of the people, to keep and bear arms," that he 
be sufficiently elevated above the child or the fool, to render it 
safe. " Abstract right" might dispense with such an inquiry, 
but practical wisdom demands that it should be made ; not to 
withhold the right forever, as the slave-holder would require, 
but to prepare its recipients for its enjoyment at the proper 
time. 

Whether that time has already arrived, or is yet to be waited 
for, is the question. In the meanwhile it would seem to be- 
come us to avoid both extremes. 

As to being a witness, the inquiry is, has the negro such a re- 
gard for truth, as to make it safe to rely upon him ? In the con- 
dition of slavery, it has been a " necessity of the position," that 
force and deception were the instruments of governing him. 
Plence he has lived from childhood to old age, in an atmosphere 
of falsehood, and the habit uf nnti'uthfulness thus engendered 
by the example of those above him, superadded to the innate 
cunning of his nature, luis made him an adept in the art of de- 
ception. 

I do not mean to say that he is always false and never to be 
relied upon, but that the circunistances to which I have re- 
ferred, have not been calculated to nuike him astute in inquir- 
ing what truth is, or sternly inflexible in sticking to it. 

Then again, there is something in the natural conformation 
of people which afl:ects their power of conceiving truth and im- 
parting it. No man has ever been engaged, for any length of 
time, in the administration of justice, without having met with 
persons, who would state as a fact, that which they only be- 
lieved, but did not know to be so. Women and Irishmen par- 
ticularly — indeed all those who are creatures rather of sentiment 
than of stern reason — are of this class. And it often requires 
much scrutiny to make even the witness comprehend the dilTer- 



THE COLOKED TEOPLE. 23 

encc between belief and knowledge. Then, on the other hand, 
there is a class of cold, severe, puritanical reasoncrs, whose 
statements are most reliable exjxjnents of the actual reality. 
Now, to which of these classes does the negro belong? We all 
know that he is, by nature, the very creature of impulse, and 
without the training necessary to give that impulse the ]u-oper 
direction, he is liable to have in his mind the wildest conlusion 
between what he believes and what he knows, and to become, 
of course, a very unsafe witness. 

I do not speak of a disposition in either of these classes will- 
fully to falsity the truth. Such a dis])osition may be found in 
both, and perhaps more frequently in the culdly-reasoning than 
in the M'armly-impulsive witness. I am speaking only of differ- 
ently constituted minds, and of their trustworthiness as chan- 
nels for the conveyance of truth. " Truth is like water — ever 
the same — but it will take the shape of the vessel into which it 
is poured." 

We all know — for history is full of it — that men are just as 
ready to go to the death for error as tor truth, if they are only 
made sincerely to believe in it. The voluntary human sacrifices 
on the Druidical altars —the mother, casting her oftspriug into 
the Ganges, and the worshipper who prostrates himself to bo 
crushed beneath the wheels of Juggernaut, were just as sincere 
and as self-sacriticing as any one who was ever exposed to wild, 
beasts at Ephesus, or perished amid the fires of Smithtield. 

It is, therefore, surely important to inquire in what condition 
is the Negro is this respect ? If his natural organization and 
his life-long training have combined to make him unreliable, 
then a change must be wrought in him, and education can do 
it. Why? Galileo was imprisoned for years for the " damnable 
heresy"" of announcing, in respect to our planetary system, ideas 
W'hicli our young children now receive as unquestioned truths, 
The world has been educated up to their reception and compre- 
hension. Nay, it was five or six hundred years before the be- 
ginning of the Christian era that the idea was born among men 
that the earth was not the centre of our system. Yet it is now 
only within three hundred years that it has ]net with general 
acceptance, and simply because men were not belbre that edu- 
cated up to it. 



24 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 

It can hardly take as long to educate the Negro to a just ap- 
preciation of the value of truth ; but if he is not yet in that 
condition, and it reqnires time to bring him there, "why, in 
Heaven's name ! let ns wait, and meanwhile send the school- 
master and preacher abroad, and make it alike his interest and 
that of those immediately around him to make those appliances 
availa1)le and effective. The education of Prussia tells the tale; 
for it has been the chief cause of her rise to empire. Millions 
of ignorant serfs might not have wrought out in years what her 
educated eonnnon people accomplished in weeks. And it was 
the instructed condition of our common soldiers which enabled 
ns, in so short a period, to overcome the most stupendous re- 
bellion known in history, and to astonish the monarchies of the 
world by performing a task which they really believed to be 
impracticable, and with them wonld doubtless have been so. 

But let ns pass from that topic to another — that of the per- 
formance of jury duty. 

Yery many of onr people look npon this as a grievous bur- 
den, which they seek to avoid, and very few seem ever to have 
appreciated its real value. This is a great mistake. Yon are 
aware, Senator, that I have been abont fifty years engaged — 
either on the Bench or at the Bar — in the administration of 
justice. During that time I have carefully noticed the effect of 
this feature of our institutions. And I believe that if you take 
the greatest rowdy which any of our worst governed cities can 
produce, and pnt him into the jury box, for some weeks, the 
effect will inevitably be to make him a deserter from the cause 
of disorder, and enlist him on the side of law and order. Why ! 
he feels himself identified with the administration of justice, 
and that every uprising against the supremacy of the law or the 
peace of society, is rebellion against him; for is he not a minis- 
ter of the law, and at whom does that rebellion aim its assanlts, 
but him and the others of its ministers ? He thus becomes one 
of the governing class, and not merely one of the governed. He 
is thus taught law, justice and mercy. He feels himself the 
equal of others, and, unconsciously to himself, he acquires self- 
respect, in the same manner that the Judge does, though doubt- 
less in a less degree. How can it be otherwise, when he is 
thus deciding on such momentous matters as life, liberty, repu- 



THE COLOKED PEOPLE. 25 

tation and property, when lie feels himself called upon to cru- 
cify passion and prejudice, to seek for truth and aim at justice? 

Lo ! how important a school this is for the Xegro. But is he 
fit to enter it yet, or must we wait for time to do its work ? 

It is said that the right to vote is essential to tlu; Negro's pro- 
tection. Is not his participation in the administration of justice 
equally, if not more so ? Yet, he can enjoy neither of these 
rights, or, if you please, discharge neither of these duties, without 
having the power, in the same degree, to aifect others. Hence 
is it so important to know if he is yet fit for the task, and if not, 
how he can be made so ? 

It is easy to imagine what effect his possession of this right 
might have on his elevation, and in lightening the burden of 
our duty of protecting him; but is it as easy to imagine what 
the injury might be to himself and to others, if he thus possessed 
it, when steeped in ignorance, conscious of dependence, and 
swayed by prejudice and passion ? 

Let the fate of our city help to answer the question. Here 
we have 50,000 native voters who have been educated to a 
knowledge of their duty; and 70,000 naturalized voters whose 
education in this respect has been, to say the least, somewhat 
neglected, and so great have been the abuses by the regularly 
constituted authorities chosen by the people, that our Legislature 
has been engaged for several years in the necessary and praise- 
worthy task of transferring the power of government to special 
commissions, deriving their authority and their existence from 
the central power of the State ; or, in plain English, taking away 
from a locality the power of self government, because the unfit- 
ness of the electors renders it dangerous to the public welfare to 
entrust them with its exercise. 

Fortunate, indeed, has it been for us, that there has been a 
power both able and willing to perform the work ! 

Tocqueville was one of the wisest of those who have pub- 
lished their travels in our country. lie says, in his Democracy 
in America — I quote the idea only, for I have not time to hunt 
up the passage — he says, when he is discussing the problem of 
our aptitude for self-government, that it is owing to the early 
training our people get. Thus, in our childhood, at our schools 
and at our games — in our manhood, in our various voluntary 



20 THE COLORED PEOPLE. 

associations, religions, charitable, meclianical, and tlie like ; in 
all onr political partitions of territory, asinonr school, and high- 
way and election districts ; in our towns, villages, wards and 
cities ; in our counties and States we are frequently engaged in 
the function of government ; sometimes in mere local matters and 
sometimes in those of a national character, so that a change of 
the Chief Magistrate of the nation, which in other lands would 
involve a bloody I'evolution, with us, hardly gets up a greater 
excitement, in any given locality, than the election of a path 
master or a town constable. 

This is eminently true, and when to it we add the fact of our 
widely diffused common school education, and the fact that al- 
most every one of us is, sometime in the course of our life, called 
upon to fill some official station, we will see a solution of the 
problem, and that it is this long and continued training which 
alone fits us for the task. What we should be without this train- 
ing, and v/itli the addition of the habit of depending upon others, 
let the condition of the South American Republics answer, where 
the winds and the weather are not more unstable than their 
government, and where the public peace and security are expir- 
ing under a chronic disease of revolutionism, before which there 
is much cause to fear that freedom itself may perish. 

I have dwelt so much at length on these three topics, of bear- 
ing arms, giving testimony, and serving as a juror, because in all 
the discussions on the status of the Freedmen in his new condi- 
tion, which I have known anything about, I have seen very lit- 
tle notice taken of them ; yet they have seemed to me to be as 
fully important as civil rights as the political right of voting. 
At the same time, all the considerations suggested, as to them, 
have just as strong an application to the other, that of voting. 

Before going farther, I must guard against being misunder- 
stood. I am aware that there is among the Freedmen, as among 
the white men, an infinite variety of condition of intellectual 
capacity, morals and mental cultivation, and that there are those 
of so superior a mental and moral condition that my suggestions 
will have little or no application to them.'^^ It is not of them, 



* I confess I can see no objection to their possession of all the rights of a 
citizen, excepting only the fanciful one of difference of color. That is matter 



THE COLOKED PEOrLE. 27 

however, that I am speaking in this paper. But I am referring 
miiinly to the great mass of the 4,0iJ0,00n, to whom freedom is 
a novelty, and whose education, in the merest rudiments of 
knowledge, lias only just begun. Unhappily, that is far the 
largest number, and by far of the mo:t consequence. 

But it cannot be overlooked, that the four rights which are 
thus to be conferred on the Freedmen, as parts of his regenera- 
tion, and appurtenant to his citizenship, namely, to bear arms, to 
bear testimonj', to vote, and to act as jurors, can be exercised 
for evil as well as good, and that the influence for either evil or 
good must come, most forcibly, from those among whom they 
live rather than from those at a distance. 

"What is to be our safeguard against this tendency to evil? 

When a Freedman is a witness, it will be found in the power 
and intelligence of the tribunal before which he is bearing testi- 
mony. They can test his credibility, and receive or reject, as 
good sense may dictate. 

In the selection of men to be jurors, it is the uniform practice 
to require something as a qualification besides manhood. Thus 
you know. Senator, in our State a man to be a juror must be 
between twenty-one and sixty years of age, possessing §250 of 
personal or § 150 of real estate, in ihe possession of his natural lacul- 
ties, not decrepit or inflrm, and of fair character, approved in- 
tegrity, of sound judgment and well informed. Such a practice, 
if prevalent at the South, would aftord there, as it does here, a 
sufficient safeguard in this respect. 

In bearing arms, the Freedmen might be subjected to a mili- 
tary discipline under a properly organized system, whereby they, 
as our militia are, might be taught not only habits of order, but 
how to use and not abuse the right. Like the soldiers in some 
parts of Germany, they might be educated at the same time that 
they were disciplined. 

But how when thev come to votintr ? "Where then the safe- 



of taste and education, but it is a small game, and one, by the way, that two 
can play at, and, indeed, I believe, have played at ; for it is said that the Ethiop- 
ian Christian insists that Jesus of Nazareth and his mother were black people. 



28 



THE COLORED PEOPLE. 



ganrd ? There will be no judge nor jury to sift and weigh their 
action at the ballot box, and restrain the power to do mischief. 
There can be no military discipline to marshal them to their 
duty and teach them how to use their arms. 

But there can be required the same safeguard there, as in the 
selection of jurors, and here too, the possession of the natural 
faculties, a fiiir character, approved integrity, a well informed 
and sound judgment may be made the necessary qualifications. 
And why not ? Both are alike capable of affecting the welfare 
of others, and both are duties as well as privileges, full as well of 
responsibility to others as protection to themselves. 

The power of Congress cannot, under the Constitution, as it 
now stands, go further than to require that there sliall be no dis- 
tinction of race or color in the enjoyment of the rights of citizen 
ship. The power of defining those rights has been reserved to 
the States, and it is very much to be doubted whether the peo- 
ple are prepared to consent to any change in this respect. A 
transfer of this power to the National Government would be a 
step toward concentration far beyond anything ever yet pro- 
posed. 

One thing must be remembered, that when the Freedman be- 
comes a citizen, he comes within that provision of the Constitu- 
tion, which declares that " the citizens of each State shall be en- 
titled to all privileges and immunities of citizens of the several 
States." 

And another thing must be remembered, that with the right 
to vote comes the right to hold office, and thus is increased the 
power of evil as well as of good. This must be so, unless there 
is introduced into our institutions a provision that a right to be 
an elector is not of itself sufficient to constitute a right to be 
elected. There are such provisions now existing among us. 
Thus, though a man be an elector, he cannot be President, un- 
less he is a native bom citizen, thirty-five years of age, and 
twenty-four years a resident of the United States — nor a Sena- 
tor, unless thirty years of age and for nine years a citizen — nor 
a member of the House of iiepresentatives, nnless twenty-five 
years of age and for seven years a citizen; bat unless some re- 
striction shall be expressly provided, the right to hold office will 



THE SLAVEirOLDEK. 29 

follow witli and belong to the riglit of voting. What will there 
be to prevent it ? 

Section Five, 

The Slaveholder and Secessionist. 

The next class of people at the South who are to be con- 
sidered in the contemplation of the idea of Reconstruction, 
comprehends the out and out Secessionist, as well, those who 
were ready to use secession as a stepping stone for their own rise, 
as those who really and honestly believed in it. 

And here let us bear in mind that Secession and Slavery ex- 
isted together. They were inseparable companions, and neither 
was found where the other was not. And it would be a very 
unsatisfactory mode of treating the subject if they were to be 
considered without due attention to their connection with and 
influence upon each other. The " logic of events" bound them 
together in ties, which we cannot now sever, and in my paper I 
shall have due regard to their union. The fact is before me, and 
I need not pause to demonstrate that it is so, or inquire why it 
is so. It cannot be said that either produced the other, but the 
greater one of the two, that whicli was deepest in the great 
Southern heart — Slavery — found Secession in its path and used 
it as its instrument. 

It was a strange feature of the contest, that while Slavery was 
really at the bottom of it all on both sides, one side aiming at 
its abolition and the other at its perpetuation, neither would 
admit it, and both went before the M'orld, one for the preserva- 
tion of the Union, or the other for the establishment of the right 
to secede from it. 

Had Secession stood alone it would not have recpiired such a 
war to overthrow it. It could have been disposed of nearly as 
easily as its kindred heresy of Kullifieation was thirty years ago. 

But it did require a war to abolish Slavery, and a war came 
and did abolish it. 

In abolishing it, however, it has left many delicate and diffi- 
cult questions for us or our posterity to settle. But Secession 



30 THE SLAVEIIOLDEE. 

has left beliincl no problem to solve. It is dead, and ^vitll regard 
to it we have only, like the Patriarch of ancient times, to bury 
onr dead out of our sight. Let it rest in peace. It will never 
trouble us again. It will never rise from the grave to push ns 
from our seats. 

But the other questions ! They are numerous indeed, and de- 
mand a careful wisdom in adjusting them which nothing short 
of Divine Providence can endow our people with. 

They all spring from Slavery, its influences and its conse- 
quences, and it would be unwise to deny it. 



Errors of the Soutli as to Northern Feeling-. 

In one respect, the South has been in error from the beginning 
all through, and that is, as to the real feeling of the North in 
regard to Slavery, and that error has unifornil}- affected their 
action. 

It is true, the ultra abolitionists, who aimed as a high moral 
duty, at the destruction of Slavery, irrespective of all the com- 
promises of the Constitution, filled the public ear full of accounts 
of individual suffering, and dwelling on isolated cases of bru- 
tality and cruelty, appealed to the feelings of humanity. 

The slaveholders met this charge fully and frankly, referred 
to the hilarious condition of the slave, and appealed to the dif- 
ference between his physical condition and that of the free 
negro at the North. 

The argument and the evidence, so far as physical condition 
was concerned, being altogether on his side, the Southerner has 
been unable to understand why they have not been able to affect 
the Northern mind, and he has become irritated at the convic- 
tion that prejudice, and not fact or reason governed. He, there- 
fore, felt that he was to be sacrificed, not to fact and reason, but 
to prejudice, backed by superior power. No wonder then that 
he rebelled against such a result, and was ready to risk everything 
to defend himself. 

Looking then at the question, as one simply involving the 
physical condition of the Negro, it is difhcult to say that the 
Southerner ouglit, at all events, to be condemned. 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 31 

But all this is a very limited view of the question aud does 
not comprehend the real feeling -which led to the results that are 
before us. 



Eft'ect of Slavery on the Whites. 

There has been at the Xorth, fur man}" years, an earnest and 
growing hostility to Slavery and a determination — sometime or 
other— to have it abolished. This has been founded, not so much 
upon the physical condition of the Negro, as upon its moral 
effect on him and on the white man, his master. 

There have been millions of our fellow beings held in slavery 
by us, and whatever the lia])piness of their physical condition, 
their condition of bondage proclaimed to the world, that the 
doctrine of liberty and equality which we claimed to be the very 
foundation of our institutions, was a living lie. And whether 
any one spoke it or not, the position rankled in every intelligent 
mind, as a reproach. 

There were millions, whom we were condemning to enduring 
ignorance and darkness, and our Christianity rebelled. 

And liere was a condition of society which was creating in the 
superior governing classes, an aristocracy not of intellect, but of 
property and position, which was virtually at war witli the 
whole spirit of our institutions. 

It was tliesc considerations, rather than any affecting the 
physical condition of the Negro, which swayed tlie northern 
mind, unconsciously, perhaps, to itself, yet working out in the 
end, the great results that are before us. 

Of the universality and sincerity of this feeling, the southern 
people seem to have been ignorant from the beginning. 

Am I not right in saying this ? ITow seldom have we heard 
among the advocates of slavery, any discussion of its effects upon 
the white man ? How seldom heard of au}- hope held out for 
the mental or moral elevation of tlie Negro ? On the other hand, 
the public ear has been filled with accounts of his hilarious and 
happy condition. Mr. Calhoun was undoubtedly sincere, and 
the true exponent of southern feeling, when on the floor of the 
United States Senate he proclaimed slavery to be a " Great 



32 THE SLAVEHOLDEB. 

Good." And Christian preachers at tlie South, in advocating 
it as a divine institution, have rested their position on their power 
and tlieir duty to render the Negro's physical condition a happy 
one. 

Here they seemed to think tliat the argument ended, and that 
tliey liad altogether the best of it. But oh ! how far short they 
fell of comprehending the whole question I 

It was the effect of slavery upon the master, that was, in the 
northern mind, the great consideration, and it is that effect, 
which we are now encountering in our eflorts at reconstruction — 
not of a nation only, but of a Union that shall be harmonious 
and progressive, and a beacon light to freedom throughout the 
whole world. 

"What, then, are the southern people, and what is the effect 
which slavery has produced upon their character ? What is the 
mental and moral condition which has grown out of the circum- 
stances which have surrounded them, and which, engrafted into 
the habits of a lifetime, now stand in the way of the much cov- 
eted result ? 



Resort to Force. 

In the first place, there is one respect in which they are en- 
tirely different from us at the North. They have lived amid a 
servile population of four millions, whose instincts and interests 
were ever on the side of rebellion against the domination which 
kept them under. There was, therefore, an eternal apprehen- 
sion of insurrection — an endurino-necessitv of making therulino- 
power felt. 

The instrumentality for preserving that domination was not 
so much reason, or affection, as force and fraud — the gallows, 
the stake, the lash, and deception and ignorance being the tools 
used for the purpose. 

Now, what of necessit}', must be the effect of such a state of 
things upon the governing class ? Can you expect it to be gen- 
tleness, kindness, forbearance, regard for others rather than for 
self? 

Anything like a knowledge of human nature teaches us that 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 



33 



the very opposite must be the result, and so the facts tell us was 
the case here. 

Let not individual instances of an opposite character be cited 
against me. I am aware of their existence, and am willing to 
admit they were numerous. But I am sjieaking of the masses — 
of 8,000,000 of white people, and 4,000,000 negroes, and of their 
general condition, and I am sure that as to such a general view, 
I am correct. 

The wliite man, then — the slaveholder and his co-equal — lived 
in an atmosphere of force and fraud. The lash was an instru- 
ment of government, and so far M'as it sometimes carried, that 
numerous instances liave been known where women have caused 
•women to be whipped ! To deceive the slave, to keep him in 
ignorance, and instill into his mind certain ideas, no matter 
whetlier trne or false, was a necessity of the position, and it was 
a continual jji^iwe between tiie neo;ro and his master Avliich could 
deceive the other the most. Trutli was witldield from the negro 
and untrnths told to him in order to give his action the desired 
direction, and this, with the white man became habitual from 
childhood, and so habitual that he was unconscious that, in this 
respect, he differed at all from the rest of the world, or that he 
was carrying the habit abroad with him into the world, and 
with it, affecting all his intercourse with men. 

This was one of the great curses of slavery on the master, for 
it produced a false state of society, ran all through his social 
relations, affected his whole life, and is now one of the great 
obstacles that stand in tlie way of reunion. And yet I sujipose 
the soutlierner can hardly be persuaded tluit it is so, and will be 
apt to look upon my r>ssertion as a scandal. Yet let him pause a 
moment and see if it is not so, and at least inquire whether the 
reproof — if such it must be deemed — does not come from the 
lips of one whose great object is reconciliation between estranged 
friends ? 

"What was it, but a familiarity with a resort to violence, that 
caused at the South — what was so uncommon at the North — 
frequent personal combats with deadly weapons ? What that 
caused our National Capitol, at every session of Congress, to be 
disgraced by such contests, until the South seceded, since which 
nothing of the kind has occurred, except a solitary instance, 
3 



34: THE SLAVEHOLDER. 

where the offender was a Kentuckian, and by a private brawl 
wiped out tlie memory of valuable military service? What was 
it that made them such good soldiers at the very beginning, but 
this habit of bearing and using arms, in which our soldiers be- 
came their equals, only after two or three years training? "What 
was it that caused them even to train their women, to the unfem- 
inine accomplishment of being adepts at the use of the pistol and 
the bowie knife/- 

And all this which made them so unlike us, and all the rest 
of the civilized world — (except only the disorderly people of the 
South American Republics) instead of being looked upon by 
them as a demerit — as a curse inflicted by slavery, has been so 
far misunderstood by them, as to be regarded as praiseworthy, 
as chivalric ! It was chivalry indeed, so far as it carried man- 
ners hack to the days when men sj^ent their lives in lighting, 
and, thanked God, they could not write their names. But unhap- 
pily, they forgot that the lapse of 500 years and advancing civil- 
ization, had left all that away behind. So fast a hold, however, 
had this obtained upon them that they looked upon our abhor- 
rence of these private brawls as cowardice, and actuall}' persuaded 
themselves, that in any personal conflict, they would be greatly 
our su|)eriors— a delusion hurtful in the end, only to themselves. 

They are not yet disabused of these delusions. They attri- 
bute their ultimate defeat in the contest, not to our equality in 
the attributes of the soldier, but to our superiority in numbers, 
and they are so wedded yet to their ideas of the superiority of 
force, that all accounts that come to us, agree in representing 
them as yet appealing to violence and bloodshed. It was thus 
that the schools of Memphis were interrupted — thus that the Con- 
stitutional Convention of Louisiana was broken up, and thus 



*The exent and character of this feeling is well shown by the following 
extract from language used in ISGl, by a man (John Young Brown,) now a 
candidate for Congress in Kentucky. It seems to me that the reconstruction 
which will admit such sentiments into the Halls of Congress, is rather a haz- 
ardous business. 

" If this Northern army shall attempt to cross our borders we will resist it 
" to ihe death, and if one man shall be found in our Commonwealth to join 
" him. he ought, and I believe he will, be shot down before he leaves the 
" State." 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 35 

that all over the South, now life and property are rendered un- 
safe.* 

Ignorance of the Power of Opinion. 

They seem to have Iiad no conception of the marvelous power 
of public opinion, where it is provided, as it is in this country, 
with the means of executing its own behest. They seem to be 
as ignorant of that, as are the subjects of the IMonarchies of 
Europe. Instead of understanding, as we do, that we can, 
through the ballot box, work out a National Revolution every 
four years, they go back to the days when England could 
get rid of the doctrine of the divine right of Kings, only by 
bringing the Monarch to the scaffold, or to the times of the 
French Revolutions, when the guillotine and the barricade were 
the only means of regeneration. The institution of slavery, and 
its necessity for the use of force and fraud dimmed their mental 
vision, and prevented their seeing the mighty power of the 
public will, when institutions of freedom give it fair play. ■ 

Let us illustrate this by an instance, which is of interest, irres- 
pective of its connection with this topic : 

We all know how often, during the war, personal liberty was 
invaded, and men were imprisoned upon mere telegraphic dis- 
patches. Tims realizing, in their worse form the lettres de 
cachet, which were so disturbing an element in the French revo- 
lution. This awakened among our people only an occasional 
and faint murmur, but no outbreak of remonstrance. Southern 
people could not understand this, but pointed to it and our ac- 
quiescence in it as evidence of the tyranny of our government. 
Foreigners were astonislied, because they felt that no such 
authoritv could be exerted in their monarchies, without jrrowino- 
into a precedent and giving to the monarch a permanent power 
over personal freedom ; but we had no such fears. We were all 
able to judge and did judge, whether the necessity of the case 
warranted it, and we felt and knew, that if the occupant of the 
Executive Department should attempt to assert it as a perma- 



*I add in an appendix, some extracts from the testimony taken before a 
Congressional Committee. 



36 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 

nent incident to liis office, we could in less tlian four jears liurl 
liini from liis place and give an admonition whicli would prevent 
an imitation of his example. Our consciousness of the existence 
of freedom of thouglit, of assemblage, of the press, and of the 
ballot box, gave us the assurance that in our country, the cor- 
rection of all political evil was in the omnipotence of public 
opinion. 

This never has been fullj understood at the South. They 
have kept the lower classes of the population — white and black, 
in subjection, by the use or display of force ; they have by a like 
display, once and again extorted from our government, conces- 
sions to their peculiar institutions, which public opinion did not 
sanction but slumbered over, and they fondly believed they 
could play that game to the end and compel us to a compliance 
with their measures. The first gun that Avas fired at Fort Sum- 
ter was the sound of the voice which proclaimed that idea to tlie 
world and marvelous was its effect in awakening public 
opinon ! And when tlie war finally ended, the surrender was 
not to a change of opinion, but to the domination of that force 
whicli they had ever regarded as the supreme arbiter, and to 
which they liad appealed as such. Had the display on our part 
of that power among them continued, habit might ultimately 
have engendered a change of opinion, and, in tlie meantime, 
would have suppressed all exhibitions of a resort to violence on 
their part, to advance their own notions. 

Hence it was, that at the close of the war, while provisional 
governments, backed by our military power, existed in the con- 
quered territory, we heard little or nothing of the white man's 
violence, and his reluctance to accept the result, but much more 
of the unreadiness of the negro to accept it. 

But in an unhappy hour those governments were withdrawn, 
and the class of the people of whom I am speaking, were res- 
tored to their power of local self-government. The opinions 
which had led them to wage war upon our Union, and which 
had not yet been subjected to a superior power long enough to 
be changed, immediately found vent through those local govern- 
ments ; they put into office the very worst enemies of the Union, 
because thus they could enforce their own ideas to a pai'tial, if 
not, a general acceptance. Encouraged since then by the policy 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 37 

of the President, by his conflict M'ith Congress, by his resistance 
to tlie puljlic opinion in the loyal States, and by a supposed sym- 
pathy on Iiis part with tlieir views, they have not been content 
witli tlie opportunity thus prematurely afforded them of dis|)lay- 
ing their force through the legal channels, but have resorted to 
its display in a lawless manner, and have thus not only dis- 
turbed the peace of their communities, but admonished us that 
with them, now as heretofore, force is in their estimation, the 
chief if not the only governing power. 

It is probably true, that the lawlessness and violence, which 
all accounts agree in saying prevails to so great an extent at the 
South, would not now be found there if it had not been for the 
encouragement which these people have drawn from the lan- 
ffuafice and action of the President and his administration. But 
it is equally true, that but for that cause we should not now 
have known how unchanged were the opinions of this hostile 
class, how bitter tlieir hatred towards us and our cherished 
notions of freedom, and how ready they are, at heart, to seize 
upon every opportunity', lawless or otherw'ise, to show the deter- 
mination not to submit to the result. So that while we mourn 
over this lawlessness and violence, we may be thankful for the 
opportunity of learning how deep seated is its cause^ and how 
certain it is that that cause exists. 

There is a good deal in this. For so kind and forgiving was the 
generous feeling of the Korth, at the close of the war, among 
the masses of our people, that we might easily have been in- 
duced by a different line of conduct on their part, to have re- 
admitted them to the Union before they were fit for it, and we 
might have been slumbering on a volcano, that was only delay- 
ing its eruption until it had recruited its exhausted strength. 

It is charitable to suppose that this has been the error of the 
President and it is to be supposed that in due time he will ap- 
preciate the lesson which the disturbed state of the South so 
plainly teaches. At all events, you of the Legislature must not 
neglect it, for you may be assured that there are many thousands 
in the land who, in the beginning shared with that officer in his 
forgiving temper, who have now so thoroughly imbibed that 
lesson, that the}' will not forgive you or him for disregarding it. 

I have dwelt so lonir on this feature in the character of the 



38 THE SLAVEIIOLDEE. 

secessionists, because it hus sprung so directly from the main 
cause of all the trouble, and because it bore so directly on tlieir 
political relations to the country. 

Castes and Classes of tlie South. 

There are other features however, springing from the same 
cause, which must be considered. 

The people were divided into castes, and at the top of the so- 
cial pyramid, rested an aristocracy, to which the secessionists 
claimed to belong. This aristocracy had all the evils which have 
ever marked its existence, from the patrician days of Rome, to 
the titled nobility of England. It was fast leading our South- 
ern States to the condition in which Great Britain now is, where 
even the liberals, who are, at this moment agitating for reform, 
admit, that under their unwritten constitution, a member of 
Parliament represents the property, and not the people of the 
country. Such an unwritten constitution was fast creeping over 
the South. 

Take South Carolina as an instance. There the people never 
voted for President, — the electors were appointed by the Legis- 
lature. No man could be a member of the Legislature, unless 
he owned land, or land and negroes, and no man could vote for 
members of the Legislature, unless he owned 50 acres of land, or 
a town lot. 

The mode of appointing Presidential electors by the Legis- 
latures, being permitted by the constitution, had at one time 
prevailed in some of the Northern States, but had long ago been 
resumed by the people. It was easier for South Carolina to 
keep her presidential vote under the control of a few, and so 
South Carolina adhered to the practice. 

In several of the Southern States, there was a similar leaning 
towards the id^a, that the governments represented property, 
and not humanit}'. In Kortli Carolina, no man could be 
Governor, unless he had a freehold, worth £1,000, nor in South 
Carolina, unless he had a " settled freehold," worth £1,500 ; nor 
in Georgia, unless he had 500 acres in land, or was worth $-i,000. 

But it was not in those express enactments alone, that this 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 39 

growth of an aristocracy was manifest. Wealth was rapidly 
concentratini; in a few hands. Take Sonth Carolina again as an 
example. In 1850, one twenty-fifth part of all her improved 
lands was owned by sixteen persons, and there were persons in 
the State, who owned, each over 1,000 hnman beings; and when 
to this you add, that out of a male population of about 330,000, 
nearly 200,000 were forever excluded from any participation in 
tlie government, yon will see how growing was the evil of this 
aristocracy. 

I need not dilate upon the natural result of such a state of 
things. But when we contrast it with the condition of the free 
States, in those respects, we cannot wonder that there was found 
among those people, a greater s^'uipathy with, and attachment 
to the institutions of other countries, than to those of the free 
States of America.* 

In tlie one, such a condition might be perpetuated and encou- 
raged. In the other, it would encounter an everlasting antago- 
nism, before which it must ultimatelj' fall down and j^erish. 

Power M'as permitted to yield to its natural propensity, of 
stealing from the many to the few. 



Social Condition. 

Out of this state of things, grew up a condition of social life, 
which had its effect all through society. 

There was engendered a haughtiness, verging on insolence, 
towards those whom they pleased to deem their inferiors, which 
was calculated to alienate one portion of society from another, 
and destroy all harmony between them. 

And from this, naturally sprung a desire to keep down those 



* In a publication by Riissel, the correspondent of the London Times in this 
country, in 1801, he says: "There cropped out again the expression of re- 
gret for the rebellion of 177G, and the desire, that if it came to the vorst, 
England would receive back her erring children, or give them a prince, under 
whom they could secure a monai'chical form of government. There is no 
doubt about the earnestness with which these things are said." 



40 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 



inferior, and above all, not to make any efforts at elevating 
them. See how this worked ! South Carolina, with a popula- 
tion of 715,371, expended for free schools in 1850, 874,4SG.31. 
Connecticut, Avith a population of 460,670, expended the same 
year for free schools, $411,794.17. 

Hence, ai'ose an injurious influence to both classes, by foster- 
ing in one a selfish habit of domination, and in the other a tame 
subsers^iency. Has that influence been yet all removed, or is it 
still lingering among the people, — an obstacle in the way of a 
Avise reunion ? 

Liabor Disreputable. 

Hence flowed another idea, equally if not more injurious, and 
that was that labor was not respectable. This idea, prevalent as 
it was among all the white inhabitants, had a tendency to keep 
the poorer class down, and to send the higlier class to ofiice and 
public employments. Therefore so many Southerners, when the 
war broke out, were found in the army and navy, and in the pub- 
lic offices in the Capitol.* 

Here again was an imitation of British example, where, as 
we well know, the younger members of the aristocracy are 
foisted upon the church, the arm}', the navy, and the pension 
bureau and public office, not only at home but all abroad amid 
England's vast colonial empire. The existence of this state of 
things is sad enough there to the masses, because, if it does not 
increase the public burdens, it at least kills all hope of reducing 
them, and it is sustained there only because the legislative 
power represents money and not man. Its continued existence 
among us was simply impossible. But, in the meantime, ^YG 
must inquire whether the state of opinion which produced this 
condition of thino;s has been chans-ed, or exists still to stand in 
the way of re-union now as earnestly as it stood up for disunion 
five or six years ago. One thing is certain : the idea that Icgis- 



* Tlie importance of tliis idea is manifest from tliis, tliat in all the discussions 
at the South wliieh have resulted in their unanimous rejection of the proposed 
Amemhnentto the Constitution, that clause wliich excludes them from office Las 
occupied a prominent place. 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 41 

lative power represents property and not the people, cannot bj 
any possibility be permitted to exis-t in this countr}'. Our peo- 
ple \vill eradicate it root and branch at all hazards. They will 
not give to gold and silver a predominance over intellect and 
virtue. 

Another effect of this state of things was lavishness of expen- 
diture, and extravagance of living, accompanied by a generous 
hospitality, Avhich it was delightful to enjoy if painful to observe. 
So far did this go throughout the Avhole of that society, that 
even the " Poor White Trash," in bis rags, would turn up his 
nose at our copper-coin, and that severe economy which had 
laid the foundation of our progress at the North, was universally 
regarded as meanness. Industry and economy were looked 
down upon with scorn : untbrift and idleness were marks of the 
gentleman. Has this been changed yet I It takes time to form 
habits of thought. It takes time to form a wish to change those 
habits, and it takes time to carry such a wish into effect. 

Out of all this grew a superficialness of manner — a life U]x>n 
the surface, which did not, as a first duty^ aim at the cultivation 
of the inner and deeper, and more spiritual virtues. It forgot 
that law of humanity which makes man instinctively " struggle 
against beauty, genius and fascination, and yet cause him to 
yield without reluctance to the charms of an amiable heart." 



The Soiitberu Womeu. 

This is eminently true of the women of the South, who, 
throughout the contest, have been our most formidable adversa- 
ries, and the most inveterate supportei^ of secessionism and 
slavery'. 

Is it strange that this should be so? Creatures, as they are, 
rather of sentiment than of reason, swayed more by instinct than 
by judgment, educated as they were from early childhood, in 
the belief of the righteousness of their condition, and taught 
from infancy in their churches, their schools and their social re- 
lations, that slavery was a divine institution ; it is not wonder- 
ful, that, in their characteristic devotion to what they believed 
to be true, they should be ready to make every sacrifice for 



42 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 



tlieir cause, and that even now they deem it a merit to endure 
any amount of suffering in defence of what they honestly believe 
to be right. 

If this is so, then this must be viewed as an important con- 
sideration to be wisely regarded in all efforts at reconstruction. 
For it must be ever borne in mind, that reconstruction, to be 
valuable, must be a cordial, heartfelt union of sentiment, and 
not a mere external conformity produced by force. 



Southern Politics. 

The political sentiments of this class of people, and how far 
they have been or may be changed, must be regarded. To un- 
derstand this, it may be well to refer to the events out of which 
they gi-ew. 

Far back as the Convention which framed our National Con- 
stitution, there was a strife between the idea of forming a strong 
national government, capable within itself,' as the confederation 
had not been, of carrying out all the purposes of nationality — or 
one so restricted and hemmed in by counteracting powers, as 
to prevent the recurrence of such tyranny as they had lately re- 
belled against. This division of opinion has run through our 
history from that day to this, and at that early period gave rise 
to two parties, then known as Federal and -Republican. 

In the Convention, these principles elicited much discussion, 
and the result was a compromise, in Avhich however, the Re- 
publican principles achieved the greatest predominance. 

That success was greatly increased by the action of the States, 
to whom the constitution was submitted for adoption. Several 
amendments were proposed by the States, and finally agreed to. 

Among them, the Ninth was " The enumeration in the Con- 
" stitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or 
" disparage others, retained by the people," and the Tenth M-as, 
" The powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti- 
" tution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 
" States respectively, or to the people." 

It will be readily perceived that it was the reserved power of 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 43 

the States, wliicli was looked to as the chief instrument of pre- 
venting; too stronof a national 2;overnment. 

In Washington's first administration, he took care to have in 
his cabinet, representatives of both those principles, — Jefferson 
Secretar}- of State, and Randolph, Attorney-General, the leaders 
of one, and Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, and Knox, 
Secretary of War, the leaders of the other. 

There was not only this conflict of principle, but there was 
then as now, a local or territorial rivalry. When the question 
had arisen, who should become the leader of the armies of the 
Kevolution, there was an earnest contest between a Virginia and 
a Massachusetts man. Massachusetts had struck the first blow, 
but Virginia was the most populous and wealthy. The contest 
was ended by a magnanimous surrender by Massachusetts to 
Virginia. It was on motion of John Adams, that the command 
was given to Colonel Washington, of Virginia, and rich indeed 
to the Avhole country, was the reward of this self-denial. But to 
Massachusetts was accorded the Presidenc}' of the Confederate 
Congress, in the person of John Hancock. 

So, when the government was organized under the new 
constitution, the Presidency was given to Virginia, and the Vice- 
Presidency and the succession to Massachusetts. 

The contest between these contending elernents of principle 
and of territory, extended all through the administration of 
Washington, which closed in 17D7, and into that of his successor, 
Adams, when it culminated and ended, at tlie close of his admin- 
istration, in the triumph of the Republican principle and the 
bestowal of the Presidency upon citizens of Vii'ginia, for a period 
of twenty-four successive 3'ears. 

It was during the administration of Adams, that two of the 
Southern States, at the instigation of Jefferson and Madison, 
who became the two next Presidents, — passed what is familiarly 
known in our political history, as the Kentucky and Virginia 
Resolutions. 

The main object of those resolutions, was to assert and give 
force and vigor to the restraining power of State rights, and 
ever since ISOl, they have been the text book and profession of 
faith of tlie Southern States, and of that party which, for at least 
Lalf-a-century, has had the control of our government, and which 
amid its various changes of name, is now known as the De- 



44 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 

mocratic. And so great a hold did these ideas obtain in the 
process of time, npon the Southern States, that, notwithstanding 
their division into political parties, they gave their votes, during 
several Presidential elections, in one solid body, and with entire 
unanimity, and thus, owing to divisions at the North, were en- 
abled to control the results. To this it was that the country 
owed the administrations of Pierce and Buchanan. 

There was something in all this, beyond a mere selfish struggle 
for power and position, — something beyond the triumph of an 
ephemeral party of a da}'. The sagacious men of the South saw, 
in this State rights doctrine, a means of protecting and per- 
petuating their cherished institution of slavery, and for years, 
they have followed the scent with a persistency and a wisdom 
which challenges our admiration. They insisted that slavery 
was a local institution, subject only to the control of the States 
in which it existed, and so the non-slaveholding States were 
taught to regard it, and did regard it, until it became too powerful 
and aggressive to be any longer safe or endural)le. 

Let me enumerate some of the evidences of this, for they are 
calculated to show how fast and strong a hold these sentiments 
have obtained on the Southern mind. 



Fugitive Slaves. 

The Constitution of the United States provides for the surren 
der, in the several States, of fugitives from justice and from 
servitude. 

In regard to the surrender of fugitives from justice, there 
never has been the slightest objection to the action of the State 
to which the criminal had fled, in regulating his surrender. But, 
in regard to the fugitives from service, there has been from the 
beginning, an objection on the part of the South, against the 
respective States having anything to do with the matter, and 
they have obtained from the Supreme Court of the United States 
the judgment that individual States cannot interfere, and that 
the whole matter is exclusively in the hands of the National 
Government. Hence, laws passed by Northern States, aiming 
at the protection of personal liberty, and the defence of their 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 45 

citizens against unfounded claims to the right of servitude, have 
been declared unconstitutional, and Congress has, once and 
again, yielding to the clamor of the slave interest, passed laws 
to prevent State interference, and to provide for the efficient 
exercise of the national power. 



Extension of Slavery. 

I have ever believed, from the very beginning of my invest! 
gations into the institutions of our country, that notwithstand- 
ing the concessions to slavery in our Constitution, there was, at 
the time of its adoption, a general conviction among our people, 
that it was in due time, to cease to exist among us. And I have 
always supposed, that but for that expectation, the Constitution 
would never have been ratified by the Northern States, as it 
would probaldy, never have been ratified by the Southern States 
but for those concessions.'^^ 

From that moment, this antagonism of expectation has been 
at work in our midst. The determination, to have an end to 
slavery, has been quietly but silently growing among us, and 
the determination to have it continue, has been increasing in 
strength at the South. But the latter has been the active inter- 
est, ever impelled forward by the instinct of self-preservation. 
At a State Convention which you and I attended, in 1856, you 
may remember that I had occasion to say : " The slavery inter- 
" est, from the foundation of our government, has been agares- 
" sive. And so lonfr as it is surrounded bv freedom, as large 
" and as wide-spread as that which pervades our land, it must 
" be aggressive. Aggression is a necessity of its existence. It 
" must advance, or die. If it retreats, or pauses in its onward 
" course, its fate is sealed, and it must perish." 



* It is a singular fact, showing how indiflerent the people were to this 
" instrument of compromises," that one State, (New York,) did not take the 
trouble of casting its vote for the first President, and a quorum of the first 
Congress, wliich was to have assembled in Marcli, did not appear till the 
middle of April. 



46 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 

To that onward progress the whole energies of the southern 
mind have been devoted for a century, and to the conviction of 
that necessity, all her people have been educated now and in 
times past. 

Hence the number of slaves in the nation swelled up from 
some 7( '0,000 at the adoption of the Constitution to somewhere 
between 8,000,000 and 4,000,000, in eighty years : the number 
of slave States at the South augmented from six to fifteen, and 
the area of slavery was enlarged by the acquisition of Florida 
and Louisiana, by the annexation of Texas, and spoliations from 
Mexico. 

All this, Avhile it was repulsive to the anti-slavery feeling of 
the xSorth, and only awakened there a sort of inert hostility, 
was entirely consonant to southern feeling — was in unison with 
a thorough and honest conviction of right, and aroused a spirit 
of active aggression. And out of the feeling grew the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise, the attempt to introduce slavery into 
Kansas, and the " filibustering " attacks on Cuba and Central 
Ajuerica. 

Sectional Patriotism. 

This state of things not only showed a strong bias in public 
feeliu'i- at the South, and alienated them from us at the Xorth, 
because of our undoubted hostility to such a line of action, but 
created in them a strange sort of local or sectional patriotism, 
Avhich persuaded them that their attachment and their alle- 
o-iauce to their State governments were stronger and more bind- 
ino- than those to the nation, so that while we boasted of, and 
prided ourselves on being citizens of the United States, they 
claimed to be citizens of Virginia or South Carolina, and the 
like. And so that, when the question was presented to them of 
a choice between their allegiance to the nation or their State, 
thev hesitated not one moment in choosing the latter, and men 
like General Lee, high in position, of intelligence and integrity, 
who had been educated at the expense of the nation, and M'ho 
had sworn to support its constitution, did not scruple at violat- 
ino- all these obligations and ignoring national patriotism, or at 



THE 3LAVEIfOLDEK. 47 

yielding to the impulse of a local one, and what they deemed, 
the superior obligations of State allegiance. 

While we, as evidence of our national patriotism, may poiut 
to our expenditure of thousands of millions of money, and to 
sending into the field millions of men, they may point as evi- 
dence of the sincerity of their local patriotism to a correspond- 
ing expenditure and armament on their part. 

Xow, the question is, has that perverted f»atriotism, which 
has liitherto Ijeen so powerful with these people been changed, 
or does it still exist — now, as of old, ready to produce immense 
sacrifices, and to aim once more at the destruction of our nation- 
ality? Xationality I Have they any idea of such a thing be- 
yond that of the contracted limits of their own States ? Does 
their heart swell and their pulse throb at saying " 1 am an 
American Citizen?" — at the idea that they are parts of the peo- 
ple, and of tlie ruling power of thirty millions of freemen who 
have achieved " among the powers of the earth the separate and 
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God 
entitle them '. " If they have not yet attained this sublimitv of 
feeling, what is there left for us but the hope that in time they 
may be educated up to it. And what law can be j>as5ed that 
can compel it to exist ? 

The condition of Ireland is a fair illustration of the difference 
between local and national patriotism. 

AVhatever may have caused it, the fact is, that an Irishman 
unlike the Englishman, the Scotchman, the .Canadian or the 
Australian, never claims to be a British subject, and with few 
exceptions only, never recognizes the force or the feeling of 
British patriotism ; and Ireland has for generations, been in a 
chronic state of disorder and rebellion. How soon would all 
her insurrections end, if she was only fully imbued with a 
national patriotism I How soon would all her internal discord 
cease, if she only had some Aaron's rod of nationality, powerful 
enough to swallow up all the sham or smaller reptiles that wind 
their devious way among her impulsive |>eople I 

Patriotism — national, enlarged and unselfish I How noble is 
its character I Ninety years ago it enabled 3,000,000 of people, 
thinly scattered over a vast territory, to achieve their indepen- 
dence of 003 of the mightiest nations of the earth. Lately it 



4:S THE SLAVEHOLDER. 

caused our people to send into the iield to crush rebellion, 
600,000 more men than the government called for. And it is 
now ready to renew the combat or bury the hatchet, to fight or 
forgive, and to bear readily in either event, any sacrifice or suf- 
fering, which the restoration of our Union, and the establish- 
lishment of our nationality on a firmer basis, may demand. 

Oh ! how thrice fortunate would it be, if we could only in- 
duce our southern brethren to meet us on this platform ! — a 
platform of a family of men, not of a collection of conquerors 
and the conquered — a platform of equality, not of subjugation. 

I would to God that my voice could reach every ear beyond 
Mason and Dixon's line and penetrate every heart there, to dis- 
pel the illusions which have misguided, and persuade the people 
of the reality of that fraternal regard among us, which it is not 
yet too late to awaken into activity on their behalf. For it is a 
sad truth, of which you. Senator, must be as conscious as I am, 
that, owing to the manner in which our advances towards con- 
ciliation have been received, there is, at this moment, more 
asperity in the feelings of the North toward the South than ever 
before, and it is terrifying to think how much worse it may be 
made. How soon would an enthusiatic national patriotism 
dispel all these feelings and restore harmony ! 

But it seems to me that I need not dilate any more at large 
upon those peculiarities of the southern character which Ave 
must regard in our efibrts at reconstruction. Tliere are others 
which flow from those already noticed, which will readily sug- 
gest themselves to you. 



Section Six. 

Effect ot Southern Peculiarities. 

Two questions, hoAvever, naturally present themselves ; one is 
what effect have these peculiarities already produced ? — and how 
far arc they to be considered in our eflforts at reconstruction ? 

Their effect has been most unhappy. 

1. Aside from their having produced the war itself and caused 
its stupendous sacrifices and suffering on both sides, they have 



THE SLAVEHOLDER. 49 

caused tlic rejection of all the offers of conciliation wliicli we 
have made. 

2. Tiiey have caused their people to submit to the result of the 
war of arms, sullenly and reluctantly, thus plainly telling us 
that nothing but the consciousness of our superior power has 
extorted from them even an appearance of submission, 

3. When, through the policy of the President, they were again 
clothed with the power of local self government, instead of jus- 
tifying his confidence in them and uniting with him in his efforts 
at a cordial reunion, the)' conferred their power upon the very 
worst enemies of the Union, and would seem to have striven, 
with all their might, to defeat his humane purposes and to ren- 
der him and his policy of conciliation odious to the M'hole 
country. 

4. Instead of meeting half way the kind and forgiving spirit of 
the North, they seem to have cherished a feeling of hatred 
towards us, and to have aimed to make it more bitter and vin- 
dictive tiian it was even while the war was in progress. 

5. With their fields laid waste, their whole industrial s_ystem 
deranged, wealth gone, and poverty walking in their midst, and 
when every ingress of capital and enterprise was of the greatest 
value to them, they have met the effort of wealth and labor to 
aid them with an insane persecution for opinion's sake, which 
has arrested the inflow of both. Strange delusion ! They seem 
to have been delighted at the opportunity of standing on the 
grave of their former prosperity and crying ha! ha! over its 
dead body. 

What is it that has caused this suicidal course of conduct ? If 
it were princi])le, we could make allowances for it ; nay ! we 
could admire it, as we do the devotion of the Hollanders, who 
cut their dykes and inundated their country, to repel the inva- 
sion of the XlVth Louis of France, or that of Russia, Avhen she 
fired her Moscow at the approach of Napoleon. But it is hard 
to find the principle, and it is much to be feared that it springs 
from a baser passion — Piide.* It is possible — and, therefore, we 



* There are two words which the last few years have rendered marvelously 
distasteful to me — namely, "Pride" and "Chivalry." They awaken in me 
now always the idea of what our traders call " hollow ware." 
4 



50 THE SLAVEHOLDER. 

must view it in that aspect — it is, I say, possible that it may be 
pride — pride, wliich revolts at the idea of being compelled to 
recognize as equals those whom they once ruled as slaves — at 
seeing the despised Yanlcee developing the wealth which slum- 
bers valueless under their incapacity — at being reduced to the 
necessity of recognizing the superiority of a people whom they 
once persuaded themselves they could conquer Mith so much 
ease — at being sunk from what they' would deem the supremacy 
of idleness to the degradation of toil. 

But to leave this digression and return to a consideration of 
what the Southerners have done since they have been left to act 
for themselves. 

6. They have caused or permitted — it matters not which, 
because they could have prevented — a state of disorder, in dif- 
ferent parts of the country which renders life and property un- 
safe. It may very well be that some of the newspaper accounts 
are exaggerated, and that the disorder is less widely spread than 
they represent, but the fact seems to be beyond dispute, that 
there is, in the lately Confederated States, a condition of lawless- 
ness and violence unbecoming a well regulated community, and 
which is calculated at least, if not designed, to keep away from 
the territory that immigration which would contribute so greatly 
to its regeneration. 

7. Unrestricted manhood suffrage, not founded on property, 
has prevailed too long and too generally in this country not to 
be deemed, at this day, a fixed feature of our institutions. This 
inv(tlves, for the sake of us all, upon the class who are fortunate 
enough to have property and education, a duty to do all in their 
power to elevate those who have not been so fortunafe in edu- 
cation at least, so that they may become intelligent and reliable 
voters.* This duty, always sadly neglected in the slave States, 



* It would seem as if in the Providence of God, the establishment of man- 
hood instead of property suffrage with us, was to be an instrument of eleva- 
ting the people, and even of those who immigrate with their own wonted 
ignorance, for it compels the higher classes possessing wealth and cultivation, 
(or their own safety sake, to make stupendous efforts at the diffusion of educa- 
tion among all classes. See the consequences at the South, where that stim- 
ulant was wanting ! 



TUE SLAYEIIOLDEK. Ol 

lias not been entered upon by the residents there M'ith zeal, shice 
the war, and it is much to be feared that in some instances, 
efforts at it, from without the territor}', have been retarded, if 
not actually thwarted. If the Southern people had entered 
zealously upon the performance of this most important duty, 
how gladly would the people of the North have flown to their 
aid, and have contributed all that was necessary to have made 
the effort successfnl ! The very expenditure that is now ren- 
dered necessary for the maintenance there of military power, 
would have gone a great way towards it, and most joyfully 
would that direction have been given to it. 

But it seems long to have been a prevalent idea at the South, 
that education was the privilege of the few, and not the right 
of the mass, audits discouragement among them has had the 
evident effect of concentrating power in the hands of the few, 
and disfranchising the many. It has been hard therefore for 
an imperfectly comprehended duty to overcome so powerful a 
temptation. Is it so yet? And is this one of the obstacles we 
are to encounter ? 

8. In fine, while we have within the last two years contributed 
freely of our means to the relief of the destitute among them, 
white and colored ; while we have sent them labor and capital, 
and evinced a wish to send more ; while we have striven to in- 
troduce education among them, and trusted them again witli 
the power of self government; and while we have thus — and 
wisel}', as I think the future will show — made all these efforts at 
conciliation, and would most gladly have made more, their mode 
of receiving our advances has been such as to admonish us, 
greatly to our sorrow, that the experiment has been a failure. 

It is not our fault that it is so, for some of our efforts at con- 
ciliation have been made at a great sacrifice, and at the hazard 
of discord among ourselves, that has approached nigh unto dis- 
astrous results. The conti'ibution to their aid which we would 
have gladly made our chief duty, they have compelled us to 
postpone, and give the first place to the imperative obligation to 
protect the loyal, the peaceable and the orderly from the aggres- 
sion of propensities long cultivated, always mischievous, and 
which there seems to be no desire to correct. 



52 the slaveiioldee. 

Section Sevej?. 
Absence of General L-aw. 

If I have been as trutlifiil as [ have been sincere, one conclu- 
sion is most apparent, and it is one of the most unhappy 
features of this whole thing; and that is, that no general law 
which jou can pass, can reach them all. Thev have jjlaced 
themselves in such a position, that that which is with us, the 
happj privilege of living under general laws applicable alike to 
all classes, can have no existence with them. If we aim at 
elevating the negro, we auger the white man, and his habit of 
resorting to force for the redress of all grievances, is at once 
awakened into activity. If we aim at conciliating the seces- 
sionist by restoring to liim ngain the power that of riglit belongs 
to citizenship, that power is abused, and other classes rendered 
unsafe. If we aim at protecting the loyal and the peaceable, 
we can do so only by establishing military rule, which is not 
only repugnant to the feelings of our people, but is calculated, 
by the irritation of its operation, to alienate from us still more 
those whom we would so gladly conciliate. It is a difficult 
thing, out of a subjugated province to make a free State, in full 
and equal communion with others. Poland, Hungary and Ire- 
land are melancholy examples of the difficulty of the task. 

To this state of things, after two years of a contrary effijrt on 
our part, we have been forced by the conduct of the Southern 
people themselves, and it is one of the saddest reflections which 
flow from the contemplation of the subject, that the Southern 
mind is so wretchedly perverted as to have produced it. Is it 
ao-ain to be their fate to have inscribed over the entrance into 
their country Quein deus, &c., " whom the Gods would destroy 
they first make mad 7" and must those words again, in the 
providence of God, denounce war upon them — war with all its 
brutalizing and desolating consequences ? Will they again be 
so infatuated as to endeavor to concentrate into one grand effort, 
the broken fragments of violence and disorder which now lie 
scattered throughout their land ? 

It certainly looks like it, but at all events the question is an 
important one, and must be asked, and answered too, before we 
can devise the proper measures to be adopted. 



THE NORTIIEKN PEOrLE. 



CHAP. VI. 

The Northern People. 

We must not, however, in considerino; the question of TJecon- 
struction, confine our attention to the Southern people. Those 
of the North must also be considered. For it is an undoubted 
fact among us — Mxll understood and ajipreciated b}^ us, however 
much foreigners may sneer at or lail to comprehend it — that no 
law or measure of government can be successful or permanent 
that conflicts with public sentiment. It will be sure to be dis- 
regarded or revoked. It is, therefore, necessary to regard in this 
connection, the people in the loyal States and their sentiments. 

It is most easy for me in this pajier to do that, by dividing 
them into classes, and I will do so, though I see no necessity for 
entering so much into detail as I have in speaking of the South- 
ern people. 

Section One. 

Auti-Slavery Men. 

One of our classes is so decidedly radical in its detestation of 
Slavery, that that, and everything connected with it, is, if not 
the sole, yet the chief object of vision with them. Earnestly 
intent upon emancipation from the beginning, they have done a 
mighty work before God and man, and are, probabl}-, as much 
astonished as is the rest of the world, at the rapidity and ease 
with which it was accomplished. The excitement which the 
stupendous conflict awakened has not yet entirely died out with 
them, and demands food for its continued existence. And then, 
the honest conviction which impelled their earlier action has 
wrought in their minds a sense of duty to elevate those for 
whom they have obtained freedom. This is a righteous feeling, 



51 ANTI-SLAVERY MEN. 

and will lead to no spirit of peroccution, unless it is found that 
the efforts at elevating the Freedmeu are persistently thwarted 
by the quondam slave-holder, or his sympathizing retainers. If, 
at the close of the war and since, they had belield even a willing 
acquiescence in the efforts of the humane at the elevation of the 
colored race, they would have been content, though not easily 
overlooking the neglect, by the slave-holder, of his duty in this 
respect. At all events, they would, doubtless, have troubled 
themselves but little about other measures, so that the perform- 
ance of this great duty was insured ; and they would be quite 
satisfied now with any measure which would be certain to acconi- 
p)lish that end. That being done, all feelings of anger, which 
have grown out of the obstacles which the perverse madness of 
Southern people have interposed, would soon vanish. Nay, 
more ! soon give place to a kindly feeling of pity for those whose 
training has been so perverted as to deny to them the knowledge 
of how great may be the enjoyment flowing from the luxury of 
bearing light and knowledge to the ignorant, and of lifting up 
the down-trodden from their fallen estate. 

There is one measure which this class would, doubtless, have 
gladly seen adopted, and that is, the securing of universal suf- 
frage by a provision in the National Constitution, and not leave 
it to the State Constitutions, whence it may, at any time, be 
removed by State power. That may yet be done, if there should 
occur a necessity for it. In the meantime, suffrage being given 
to the Freedmen, it will be for them to say whether it shall be 
taken from them. In such a vote, the negro's voice will be as 
potential as that of the white man, and it will be far better for 
them to learn to be able to protect themselves than to depend 
upon others — far better for them to learn at the earliest possible 
moment the important lesson that eternal vigilance is the price 
of liberty. 

Section Two. 

Sympathisers with Secession. 

Another class consists of those who, from political association, 
and from an imperfect knowledge of the negro character, have 



SYMPATHISERS WITH SECESSION. 00 

all along, and do now, earnestly sympathize with the quondam 
slave-holder and secessionist. 

Some of these are, doubtless, earnest in the belief that the 
Kegro is, by nature, so inferior — not inferior only to the white 
man — but so inferior, that he can never be elevated to a condi- 
tion of being capable of exercising the privileges of citizenship 
as wisely and as well as themslves. Neither law, nor argument, 
nor government measure can ever remove this impression. 
Time and experience alone can settle that question in their 
minds. But, in the meantime, their apprehensions are aggra- 
vated by the belief that if full powers of citizenship are once 
given to the Negro, they can never be taken away from him 
again, however unwisely to himself or unsafely to others he may 
exercise them. This matter also, time will settle, for a quarter 
of a century will not elapse before our people will have a more 
just conception of the status of the Negro among us, than they 
have now or can have, until the excitement of the still lingering 
conflict shall have entirely passed away. 

That the two races cannot live together en permanence, on 
terms of political equality, is a proposition which I suppose the 
history of mankind has not yet settled. It maybe that coloniza- 
tion may be the necessity, or a forcible expulsion from the 
country, like the Moors from Spain : or it may be that in obe- 
dience to that law of progress which pervades all nature, and 
which causes the inferior to give way to the superior, the Negro 
may, like the Indian, perish in the presence of the white man: 
or it may be that experience may demonstrate the practicability 
of political, if not social equality between the races. But, what- 
ever doubts I may have on this question, I confess I do not 
share in the apprehensions to which I have referred. For after 
the ol)servation of a long life, I have imbibed great confidence 
in the capacity of our people to meet the emergency which may 
grow out of the solution of this question. 

I do not mean to be understood as expressing that confidence 
in all the decisions of the people. It is not infreipient that ])as- 
sion, prejudice, indifference or ignorance may sway them, but 
it is that judgment of theirs which is founded upon their s<;ber, 
second thought, and for which they have been educated by the 
circumstances which have surrounded them, in which I repose 



56 SYMPATHISERS WITH SECESSION. 

my confidence. The state of education among the mass of our 
people was far greater when the Eebellion broke out in 186 1, 
than that when the Revolution ended in 1783 ; and when the 
mighty question of emancipation came npon us, almost covertly, 
certainly unexpectedly, it was found that unconsciously to our- 
selves, the public mind had been prepared for the emergency, and 
M'as fully capable of meeting it. So I apprehend it will be 
when the hour shall come for us to determine definitely what 
to do with the Negro, now that we have freed him. . 

True, we may then again find among us elements like the 
" poor white trash " of the South, or the uninstructed alien at 
the North, who will obstruct rather than aid a proper determina- 
tion, and the one class may be found indulging in a riot, and 
the other enlisted in the war against freedom. But even they 
can be educated up to an understanding of the crisis — or their 
descendants at least. If, however, they shall not be, past ex- 
perience shows that in the very worst condition of their passion 
and ignorance they can only disturb. They cannot thwart. 

I repeat, then, that I do not share in these apprehensions. 
Time, alone, can show whether they are well founded. No law 
can settle the question, and to time we must leave it, unless we 
are prepared now to say, that they rest on so solid a foundation 
that equality of citizenship is out of the question : and the only 
alternatives between which we are left to choose are coloniza- 
tion, expulsion, or extinction. 

lean hardly think that even the class of whom I am speak- 
ing, are yet prepared to say that we arc reduced to these alterna- 
tives. They are fearful to contemplate, but they are upon us, 
and we must choose between them, unless we conclude to try 
the experiment of allowing the colored race to live with us, and 
on such terms as will enable them to protect themselves, and 
themselves contribute to their own necessary elevation. 

Still, these considerations do not answer the whole of the ob- 
jections of this class. They ask, with great pertinency, " can 
they not be elevated without giving them political equality ? 
Prussia is an illustration of the practicability and effect of com- 
pulsory education ! " The answer is as pertinent : " The Prus- 
sian is educated to become the subject of absolutism — to be of 
the governed and not of the governors, and when educated, he 



SYMPATHISERS WITH SECESSION. 57 

has social equality with the world around him." That tlie 
Negro, probably, never can have, and in every attempt at com- 
pulsory education he M'ill find himself amid social relations 
which are indifferent, if not actually hostile to his elevation. 

And this must be so, arising from the diiference between the 
races, long after slavery shall have been forgotten and all its in- 
fluences expired. 

The force of tins answer will be appreciated when Ave reflect 
that the application of this compulsory education must be local 
— must be exerted in the vicinage of the Negro, and be con- 
fined to a portion only of our temtory, away from the daily ob- 
servation and interruption of at least three-quarters of the 
whole people, and especially of those who take the deepest in- 
terest in their elevation. 

But in order that I may be certain to be nnderstood, I beg 
leave to repeat the position I have taken. AVe have the Ne- 
groes among us to the number of three or four millions ; we 
have emancipated them, and we find them poor, degraded and 
ignorant ; we cannot colonize them all ; we cannot expel them 
from tl^e country ; we cannot look to their extirpation, and have 
we anything left but to elevate them 1 And, considering that 
they are confined to a portion of our territory, and not wide- 
spread among us all, and are destined to live among an un- 
friendly population, how can we hope for their elevation unless 
we confer on them the power of self-protection ? 

There is another portion of this class of Northern people who 
are swayed by far dift'erent motives. They have sympathised 
with secession from the beginning from mere party considera- 
tions. Having enjoyed power for years by a coalition with 
Southern voters, they have clung to their " confederates" from 
a reluctance to abandon their hold on power and patronage. 
For them, I invoke no sympathy. They have " given up to 
party what was due to mankind." 

During our war of 1S12, with Great Britain, there was a 
party in the Eastern States so hostile to our Government and 
the war, that they assembled in convention at Hartford, and 
claimed the right to make a separate treaty of peace with the 
common enemy. It was not long before public opinion so 
thoroughly ostracised them, that to be known as a " Hartford 



58 THE CONSERVATIVES. 

Conventioiiist," was a perfect disqualification for all public posi- 
tion. The stain was, in the estimation of the people indelible, 
and even death did not eradicate it. The class of to-day of 
whom I am speakino', may profit by the example. Our people 
have other means than tlie gibbet for punishing sympathy with 
treason, and it may be true yet that — 

Men may live but in history's curse, 

Be forgotten as fools or remembered as worse. 

Their number, however, is not large enough to demand much 
consideration, and death and shame will alike contribute daily 
to diminish it, and that the more rapidly, as our people grow 
more and more to appreciate tlie magnitude of the conflict in 
which they have triumphed, and the vastuess of the sacriflces 
which a national patriotism has prompted them to make for 
their country and for freedom. 



Section Theee. 



The Conservatives. 

Tlie remaining class of our Northern people are those who 
eschew both the extremes of which I have spoken, and on the 
question of Reconstruction, may be emphatically termed " Con- 
servative." This is by far the most numerous class of all, and. 
while the one extreme may clamor above all things for severity 
and punishment upon the authors of disorder and violence, and 
the other clamor with equal vehemence for universal and un- 
conditional amnesty, this large class are anxious, above all things, 
for a harmonious and pernmnent reunion of the whole country. 
They deprecate both extremes, for they see mischief in both. 
They have beheld, with regret, the too great lenity of the Presi- 
dent, for events have shown that in many cases, his pardons, un- 
like those of God, have been bestowed upon the persistent and 
not upon the repentant offender. They have beheld with sor- 
row, the intolerance with which some have met every difference 
from their own opinions, and the vindictive spirit with which 



THE CONSERVATIVES. 69 

they have insisted that tlie prime duty of power in the emer- 
gency is to punish and to crush, — forgetful, that in this they are 
copying after the very people whom they have condemned for 
regarding force as the chief instrument of government ; and for- 
getful, too, of the teaching, both of wisdom and of Christianity, 
that love is a far more effective instrument of control than fear. 
This class, compassionating the wretched condition of hnmilia- 
tion and suffering to M'liich the Southern people have, in their 
infatuation, reduced themselves, and inclined to leniency from 
the very close of the war, have been put out of all patience 
with the continued madness which has abnsed every offer at 
conciliation. But there is sorrow rather than anger in this feel- 
ing, and they would even yet gladly forgive, if forgiveness 
could onlj' produce reformation : and while they are ready now 
to permit the existence of a military government over the con- 
quered States, they do so with the greatest reluctance, and only 
because the preservation of peace and good order demand it. 
They will insist upon its being temporary and will ever be 
found ready to adopt any measure which the wisdom of events 
may suggest as best calculated to produce a harmonious union. 
There is no danger that habit or familiarity with it, will ever 
induce them to submit to the predominance of the military 
power one moment longer than absolute necessit}'' shall demand. 



60 CHANGES SINCE THE WAE, 



CPIAP. VII. 

The CliaDges since the War. 

I have thus enumerated eight classes of people — live at the 
South, and three at the ]N'orth, who are to be regarded in our 
efforts at Eeconstruction. To which of them the most impera- 
tive duty may be owing, at any given moment, must depend 
upon the circumstances existing at the time. So, I have referred 
to various measures which it would be necessary to adopt, but 
which of them would be most necessary, at the moment, must 
also depend upon circumstances. 

At the close of the war, no restrictive measures on the seces- 
sionists were required, for their submission to the result seemed 
to be complete and uncpalified, and our chief duty appeared to 
be the elevation of the Freedmen ; but now, repression of the 
still existing and rampant spirit of rebellion has become a neces- 
sity. Then, it was the hour of triumph and apparently of safety 
to the loval man ; now, his protection against intolerant aggres- 
sion is as imperative in its demands as it ever was in the very 
worst days of the war. At one time it seemed as if nothing was 
necessary to complete reunion but a restoration to the South of 
the power of local self government ; but now so wantonly has 
that power been abused, and I had almost said so insolently has 
it been exercised in contempt of our spirit of forbearance, that 
the elevation of the Freednaen, the protection of the loyal, and 
the hope of reunion alike forbid their further exercise of it, at 
least for the present, and until they can teach themselves or be 
taught by us how to use it. At one time it was believed that 
having of their own volition submitted to the arbitrament of 
arms the questions of Slavery and Secession, and having been 
defeated, after the utmost effort on their part, they would, like 
people of common sense, acquiesce in the result and at least 
suffer those who had misled them to this defeat, to pass out of 



CHANGES SINCE THE WAK. 61 

sight and be forgotton ; but now those leaders are industriously 
thrust into the most prominent places among them, as if to show 
to us that they are determined to use what little of power there 
is left to them, in rewarding those who were most prominent 
and most efficient in the effort to perpetuate slavery and destroy 
the Union, as if to show that rebellion was far more acceptable 
to them than loyalty. 

Was the instance ever known in history in which rebellion, 
when defeated, was permitted thus to flaunt itself in the face of 
loyalty ? At one time we could smile at this, and let it pass as 
harmless bravado, but now it is assuming too serious an aspect 
to be trifled with, for it is becoming in their minds conclusive 
evidence of their being at once right and powerful. 

Such have been the changes in our condition wrought during 
. the past two years. Who can tell what may occur in the near 
future ? When we look back upon the last six years and Ijchold 
what great changes have been wrouglit, far beyond anything 
that human foresight could have foretold, we are warned that 
others may yet come before the national mind shall be fully 
prepared to adopt the precise measures necessary for a ]:)crfect 
reunion. We may look back upon that past in solemn awe, and 
recognize the hand of a Divine Providence, both in the means 
and the end, but we must also recognize that, now as then, a 
duty of action rests upon us as His instruments in the work. 

Tiie evils under which we have suftered owe their oriiiin to 
early training, to habits of thought and action acquired in early 
youth, to necessities growing out of a peculiar condition of so- 
ciety, and it must be the work of time to produce a change. 
The social system of a territory as large as most modern em- 
pires, has to be regenerated. The industrial system of 12,000,000 
of people is to be reorganized. The instinctive repugnance of 
races having no natural affinity for each other, is to be overcome. 
Four or Ave millions have to be educated up from a state of bar- 
barous ignorance. A national patriotism is to be engendered 
and fraternal harmony created among those who have encoun- 
tered each other in a deadly strife, in which many hundix'd thou- 
sands have perished, leaving sorrow and mourning in thousands 
of homes. 



62 



MAGNITUDE OF THE TASK. 



CHAP. YIII. 



Magnitude of our Task. 

Tliis is indeed a mighty work, and it may very well be that 
it cannot be performed until this generation shall have passed 
away and given place to a new one, trained by events to a 
familiarity with very diflerent sentiments. It was long after 
the union upon one head of the Crown of the two Kingdoms, 
before the English and the Scotch, after previous hostility be- 
tween them, became so habituated to each other as to produce 
the harmonious union that now exists. It was long after the 
doctrine of the divine right of kings perished on the scatFuld of 
Charles Stuart, before peace and freedom were restored to 
England — long after Louis XYI expiated at the guillotine the 
crimes of despotism, before order reigned in France again. It 
is a hundred years since the proclamation in our land of the 
principle of an equality of human rights, and it is only now 
that its actual existence is beginning to be established in its 
proper universality. 

Such, in the providence of God, is the tardiness with which 
"man's elevation always progresses, and we cannot hope for an 
exemption from the universal law. 



THE END IN VIEW. C3 



CHAP. IX. 



Tlie End in VicAV. 



Still, this is no reason why we, who are living actors in the 
passing scene, should sit down in inactivity. We can do much 
to hasten the result; much to prevent or alleviate the suffering 
which might otherwise attend its advent. Keeping the restora- 
tion of a liarmonions reunion ever in view, as the chief object to 
be attained ; and inspired, as we may well be, with an abiding 
confidence that it will yet be attained, we can do much, very 
much in the meanwhile. 



Section One. 

Not expect too much of Government. 

But of one error we must beware — we must not ask or expect 
too nmch of our Government. There are other instruments of 
rule with us than political and otticial action ; other means of 
control than the direct application of force; other appliances for 
human advancement than those with which Government has to 
do. It is not to laws or constitutions alone that we need resort 
for a redress of grievances or the diffusion of happiness. With 
us, religion, education, social life, industry, trade, ask and will 
permit from Government nothing but protection, and that pro- 
tection which shall permit to each its broadest freedom of action. 
So that, it will readily be seen, that there are many other engines 
besides Government that may be set to work in the task that is 
before us. 



64 PAST REVOLL''nONS. 

Section Two. 

Past Revolutions with us. ' 

Let mfi pause a moment, Senator, to illustrate this by instances 
from our history of changes "wrought in this manner. 

In the jealousy of concentrated power in the nation, which 
had so strong a hold upon the convention which framed our con- 
stitution, it was provided that the appointment of the officers 
and the authority of training the militia should be reserved to 
the States respectively. Yet, under the invention of " volunteer- 
ing," the Government of the nation has assumed the whole 
power of discipline, and the power of appointment of all officers 
above the rank of Colonel of our vast army which conquered the 
rebellion, and not of the regular army, as was originally designed. 

So it has been, for many years, a disputed question whether 
Congress had power to establish a national bank and thus ob- 
tain a control over the currency as well as the coin of the nation. 
During the Presidency of Jackson, that question was distinctly 
presented to the people, and so distinctly settled, that the U. S. 
Bank was suffered to expire and none been created since in its 
place; but now, the national government has obtained a greater 
control over the currency than was ever before even attempted — 
has usurped to itself, indeed, an almost conq^lete monojDoly of 
it. 

So, too, with the doctrine of State Rights, which also had its 
fast hold on the convention and the people in 1790. Without 
the recognition of those rights, as contained in the constitution 
and its amendments, the States would not have gone into the 
Union. Now, no State will be admitted with that recognition 
in the sense in which they were then understood. 

Individual rebellion against the Government was provided 
for, but there was no provision for punishing the rebellion of 
States. It might be prevented or suppressed — the constitution 
gave power to do that, but it gave no power to punish. But 
now, under the pressure of necessitv", civil government is with- 
drawn from such States, and they are punished with a military 
rule. The disability of self-government is the penalt}" of their 
offence. 



PAST REVOLUTIONS. 65 

And W3 have these strange anomalies. The mastery of the 
sword, in other hands, is establislied over those who were the 
first to appeal to that mastery, and those States "who insisted 
npon their right to go oat of the Union, are now, notwithstand- 
ing their earnest claim for admittance, kept ont, and by those 
very States ^A"ho went into tlie Avar for the avowed pnrpose of 
preventing their going out. 

In like manner our general government, which for the first 
thirty or forty years of this century Avas conducted on the princi- 
ple of the strictest construction of limited and delegated powers, 
has, now, by a series of events an<l the necessities growing out 
of them, by the action of Congress, by the adjudications of our 
Courts, and by the nndisputed exercise of power, become as 
strong, as vigorous, and as exempt from the trammels of rigid in- 
terpretation as even Alexander Hamilton himself ever advocated 
or desired, and as free from the weaknesses which beset the 
Articles of Confederation as any one can wish. 

The ruling politicians of that period would be not a little as- 
tonished to-day, at the great change that has been wrought in 
this respect. 

Another instance will be found in the Office Tenure Bill, 
lately passed, whereby there has in a great measure been ter- 
minated a principle and a practice, which have obtained for 
many years : that of removing men from office, howe\'er faithful 
or capable, for difference of opinion, and making a wide-SAveep- 
ing change at every fiuctuation of party ascendancy ; tlms treat- 
ing office designed for the public welfiire, as the spoils of a cap- 
tured city, — belonging to tlie victor. The corruption and mis- 
chief which have flowed from this pernicious practice have been 
but too apparent, and now a revolution has come and ended it. 
— Esto ])erpetua ! The destruction of this element of corrup- 
tion, is of itself almost worth what the war has cost. 

These are things Avhich have grown up in the progress of 
events, and are the products of power found, not in our written, 
but our unwritten institutions — the power of public opinion, 
wdiich is now, and ever will be mighty indeed where freedom 
of opinion rules. 

And it is to this power, as well as to that of the administra- 
tion of the Government, that we must appeal in this eraergeac3\ 
5 



GQ WHAT IS TO BE DONE. 



CHAPTER X. 

Section One. 

Wlint is to be Done? 

How naturally, from all these considerations, flows the ques- 
tion : What these powers — separately or conjointl}^ — can or 
onght to do ? 

This is a question which it is indeed hard to answer, and I 
doubt if the country is yet prepared to answer it. It must, how- 
ever, be answered some time or other, and we can now, at least, 
approximate to a solution. 

No scheme of Reconstruction has been yet proposed that em- 
braced the whole subject, or was generally acceptable, nor do I 
believe that it is best that any such scheme should be proposed. 
It seems to me that the work must be done in detail, now one 
measure and now another, just as events occur: for I have 
always found that no human sagacity could so well devise a 
remedy, as the event itself would suggest when it occurred. It 
seems to me, therefore, that we must take this matter up by 
piece-meal, and now provide one remedy, and by-and-by 
another, as circumstances demand. Our own history is an ex- 
ample of this truth. 

In 1777, the States which had revolted from Great Britain 
formed a confederacy, and in 1778 adopted " Articles of Con- 
federation," and formed of thirteen colonies, a nation called 
" The United States of America." Those Articles carried us 
through the Revolutionary war, after a fashion, but after the 
close of the war in 1783, they were utterly incapable of answer- 
ing the exigencies of a national government. So, in 1787, after 
four years of disorder and weakness, a convention assembled and 
framed a Constitution, which was adopted in 1788, and the 



WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE. 67 

Government organized under it in 1789. It was amended in 
1798, and again in 1803, so that a period of 25 years elapsed 
between the first attenij^t at and tlie final consummation of a com- 
plete union, in the form in which it has ever since existed. 

So our revolutionary struggle began at least ten years before 
the Declaration of Independence,* and ended only after a lapse 
of some seventeen years. And all along through the beginning 
of it, there were distinct avowals that a separation from Great 
Britain was not sought for. But time brought independence in 
its train as an inevitable consequence. As in our late struggle, 
we began by disavowing all intention to interfere with slavery, 
yet in the course of events, found emancipation in our path and 
embraced it. 

In all these matters, the grand results seem not so much to 
have been aimed at in the beginning, as to have flowed of neces- 
sity from intervening events. 



Section Tavo. 

What lias Already been Done. 

So it seems to me, it mast be with us now. No general scheme 
embracing the whole subject, I repeat, has yet been suggested, 
or, apparently, even devised in any mind. But many isolated 
steps have been taken, important as tending to the ultimate 
result. 

Thus, we have abolished Slavery : we have compelled the 
Confederate States to repudiate their war debt : we have begun 
the system of universal education, faintly and feebly, to be sure, 
and mainly through private enterprise, l;)ut yet actually begun 
it: we have begun the attempt to regenerate their industr}' and 
reclaim their desolate fields by the introduction of labor and 
wealth : we have tried the experiment of self-government, 
abandoned it, and are about substituting a military power, to 
afford the protection and order that is demanded : and we have 



* The Stamp Act was passed ia 1765. 



68 WHAT REMAINS TO BE DONE. 

made a distinct offer of the terms on wliicli tliey may attain 
political equality in the Union, aiming therein at universal 
suffrage. 

When you come to look at these things, Senator, in the aggre- 
gate, you will readily see that a great deal has already been 
done and many important steps taken tending to the much 
coveted result of re-union. 



Section Theee. 

What Kemains to be Done. 

But what next ? First and foremost of all things, the whole 
country, if it overlooks past treason, will and does demand an 
adequate guaranty for future loyalty. We must liave a satis- 
factory assurance ihat the peace of the country will not be again 
disturbed — that the Freedmen sha 1 not again, under any pre- 
tence, be brought under the domination of their former masters, 
and that the incipient aristocracy of the South shall be crushed 
out forever. 

It is supposed by many that the bestowal of the elective fran- 
chise upon the Freedmen will afford that guaranty. Perhaps it 
may — partially, at least, so far as their protection is concerned. 
But whether it wi 1 afford all the guaranty required, time alone 
can determine, for no man can yet say how the Freedmen will 
ultimately use their new born power. 

Then, again, it may be said, that the substitution of a military 
for the civil power will, at least, contribute to the guaranty. 
Undoubtedly, it may, as long as it lasts, but that must, of 
necessity, be temporary in its character. Our people will never 
consent to that's being a permanence among us, and nothing but 
the necessity of the moment, springing from the mad infatua- 
tion of the Southern people themselves, would ever excuse, to 
the minds of our people, its existence anywhere in our land, 
for a moment. 

But aside from this strong repugnance of our people, there is 
another reason why we must regard the supremacy of the mili- 
tary power as temporary, and that is, the irritation and conse- 



WHAT REMAINS TO BE DOXE. C9 

quent alienation it mnst inevitably produce. I will not dilate 
npon this topic, but simply ask yon, Senator, wliat yon think 
the effect would be anywhere among onr commnnities in the 
loyal States of receiving such a missile as the following from a 
military Chieftain, backed np by a force strong enongh to en- 
force his commands ? 

General Thomas has sent the following letter to the Mayor 
of Home, Georgia: 

Headquarters Department of Tennessee, \ 
Louisville, Ky,, February 0, 1867. \ 

Charles H. Smith, Mayor of the city of Rome, Ga., and others : 

Gentlemen : The ]\[ajor-General commanding the depart- 
ment directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your communi- 
cation of the 25th ultimo, addressed to Brevet Major-General 
Davis Tilson, commanding sub-district of Georgia, giving state- 
ment of facts and circumstances wliich caused the arrest of cer- 
tain citizens of Rome, Georgia, for being concerned in the dis- 
play of the flag of the late Southern Confederacy in that city, 
and asking that justice may be done, and the prisoners released. 

In your letter you state no disrespect was intended to the 
United States government by the exhibition of the Confederate 
flag, and that the parties who displayed it, have accepted in 
good fiiith the present status of aft'airs, and do acknowledge the 
jurisdiction of the United States government, &c. 

If that is the case, it can only be supposed, presuming that 
they possess ordinary intelligence, that they misunderstood the 
present status of att'airs, which is that the rebellion has been de- 
cided to be a huge crime, embodying all the crimes of the deca- 
logue, and that it has been conquered and disarmed, and that 
its very name and emblems are hateful to the people of the 
United States ; and he must be indeed obtuse, who expects, 
without oflence, to parade before the eyes of loyal people, that 
whicli they execrate, and their abhorrence of which, they have 
expressed in the most emphatic language in which it is jiossible 
for a great nation to utter its sentiments. 

It is pretended by certain newspapers that because no order 
has been issued from these headquarters that the flag of the 
Confederacy was not to see the light, the citizens were not 
warned that it would be a treasonable act. 

This excuse is too puerile to answer, and unworthy of a school- 
boy, even. The young men arrested, as well as other citizens of 
the South, know well enough what is right and what is wrong 
in such matters, without waiting to be guided by orders espec- 



TO WHAT EEMAINS TO BE DONE, 

ially naming and proliibiting displays honoring treason, and of 
conrse contemning loyalty. Were they so stnpid as not to pos- 
sess snch innate sense of propriety, the order from these head- 
qnarters forbidding a rebel glorification over the remains of the 
rebel Brigadier-General Hanson, should have been a sufficient 
warning that such performance would not be tolerated. 

The sole cause of this and similar offences, lies in the fact that 
certain citizens of Rome, and a portion of the people of the 
States lately in rebellion, do not and have not accepted the situ- 
ation, and that is, that the late civil war was a rebellion, and 
history will so record it. Those engaged in it are and will be 
pronounced rebels ; rebellion implies treason, and treason is a 
crime, and a heinous one, too, and deserving of punishment ; and 
that traitors have not been punished is owing to the magnanim- 
ity of the conquerors. With too many peojDle of the South the 
late civil war is called a revolution, rebels are called " Confede- 
rates," loyalists to the whole country are called damned Yankees 
and traitors, and over the whole great crime, and its accursed 
record of slaughtered heroes, patriots murdered because of their 
true hearted love of country, widowed wives and orphaned 
children, and prisoners of war slain amid such horrors as iind ]io 
parallel in the history of the world, they are ti'ving to throw the 
gloss of respectability, and thrusting with contumely and deris- 
ion from their society the men and women who would not join 
hands with them in the work of ruining their country. Every- 
where in the States lately in rebellion treason is respectable and 
loyalty odious. This the people of the United States, who 
ended the rebellion and saved the country, will not permit, and 
all attempts to maintain this unnatural order of things will be 
met by decided disapproval. 

As, however, it is pretended by the friends of the citizens ar- 
rested that they were so innocent as not to know that it was 
wrong for paroled prisoners and unpunished traitors to glory in 
their shame, and flaunt the symbol of their crime in the lace of 
the country, they will be released from confinement, with the 
understanding that no act of treason will be passed unnoticed 
when detected, and may they, and others who think like them, 
profit by the lesson they have received. 

Wm. D. WniprLE, 
Brevet Major-General U. S. A. and A. A. G. 

These two, suffrage to the Freedmen and domination of the 
military power, are the only fragments even yet obtained of the 
guaranty which we demand and must have. One of these is 
necessarily slow and uncertain in its operation, and the other 



WHAT KEMAINS TO BE DOXE. 



Tt 



merely temporary; and uiiliappiljMvc have been forced to create 
these om-selves. The South have furnished neither. Aside from 
the oath of allegiance, which all experience has shown sits 
lightly on the Southern conscience, they have done nothing to 
aiford the guaranty which the i^orth has for two years, with en- 
tire unanimity, demanded of them. Though possessed of the civil 
power, and thus capable of compliance, they have used that 
power to reject our demands with contempt,— and what else is 
to be done? Congress has again, with a just magnanimity, by 
the " Military Bill," afforded them another opportunity them- 
selves to give the required guaranty. And until they deter- 
mine how they ■will treat this new offer of ours, I confess, for 
m}^ part, notwithstanding my abhorrence of military domina- 
tion, I can see no alternative— such has been their conduct — 
such their strange infatuation — no alternative between the rule 
among them of the military, or that of violence and disorder. 

Wisely has Congress provided that they may, at any moment, 
relieve themselves from both. And what more can v:e do in 
that respect ? 

There is another guaranty which the Korth will be likely to 
demand, and that is, against such a concentration of political 
power in the hands of a few, as will enable the South to give, 
on all national occasions, a united vote, and by a coalition with 
a factious minority at the North, exercise a controlling power 
in the councils of the nation.* This has been the case in times 
past, and has been brought about by the exercise of a tyranny 
over opinion utterly at war with all our notions of freedom. 
At the assemblage to which I have heretofore referred, where 



* I have seen it stated in the newspapers, that Wade TTampton, one of the 
rebel generals, had lately, in a speech, at the South, advised against the forma- 
tion of political parties, and recommended entire unanimity. It is evident 
that the secessionists understand the value of such a line of action. But it is 
as evident that they overlook one great element of safety in a free country, 
for it is only in a despotism that the existence of parties is to be deprecated; 
for everywhere they are the machinery by which is operated that vigilance 
Avhich is the price of liberty. 

If I had any doubts of tlie accuracy of my position in the text, this speech 
from a rebel general would tend much to remove them. Timeo Danaos et 
dona fereiites. 



72 WHAT REMAINS TO BE DONE. 

jou and I were present, (and that four years before Lincoln's 
election,) I used this language, which I believed then and believe 
now, to have been strictly true : 

" And now, day by day, we behold how sternly is denied to 
even the Freemen of the South, to question whether sla^-ery is a- 
great good." 

" Our own citizens, visiting there, are captured and mobbed, 
or driven from the territory, if they venture even to hint a 
doubt of its propriety." 

" The minister of the Gospel, wlio ventures to preach God's 
freedom there, is silenced." 

" The schoolmaster, who dares instruct the blinded ignorance 
there surrounding him, and the bookseller who distributes a 
word for freedom, are forcibly expelled." 

" The editor, who, in the exercise of the freedom of the press, 
discusses the matter ever so temperately, is beaten with many 
stripes." 

This state of things does not seem yet to have been changed. 
This tyranny over freedom of opinion would appear to be as 
rampant and as intolerant as ever, and the danger flowing from 
it is as apparent. The apprehension of this danger has had 
great effect with our people, and I should judge, also, in the halls 
of Congress. And why not? In times past it controlled the 
election of President, and the action of Congress ; it enlarged 
the area of slavery by the annexation of Texas, and carried 
civil war into Kansas : and it would be the heighth of folly to 
suppose that while the feeling lived, it would not again aim at 
the same results. 

The feeling has, however, gone still further, and may again, 
by producing in the minds of these people, a determination — 
unknown at the North — not to submit to the decision of the 
ballot box. What was it but this that stimulated Secessionism 
into activity at the election of Lincoln? What, then, caused 
them to appeal from that decision to the arbitrament of the 
sword ? 

There can be only one guaranty against this evil, and that is 
the diffusion of education and the establishment of freedom of 
opinion among them. 



AKE TIIET STATES STILL? T3 



CHAP. XI. 



Arc they States Still? 

I have often noticed, in the Halls of Congress and elsewhere, 
disquisitions as to what is now the true status of the Confederate 
States. Some claim that they are States still and entitled to all 
rights as such ; some, that they are conquered provinces ; and 
others that they are States with their rights as such in abeyance, 
&c., &c. Of what use are all these subtle distinctions — these 
metaphysical refinements, whicli have prevailed so long at the 
South, that they have caused the people to reason themselves 
out of house and home, out of property, country and political 
rights ! For my part, I say, away with them all ! What we 
want is practical good sense, that shall ])roduce, everywhere, 
obedience to the supremacy of the law and a happy reunion 
throughout all the land, Ko sylogistical subtlety can supply 
that want.""' 

The plain matter of fact is, that the condition in which our 
country now finds itself, and in whicli it has been since the first 
gun at Fort Sumter, is one which was not anticipated by the 
framers of our Constitution, and was not provided for in that 
instrument. Whether the Union then formed was to be indis- 
soluble, except by general consent, or to be a mere partnership, 
from wiiich any member might retire at pleasure, and thus dis- 
solve the connection, was a question for Avhich no ex])ress pro- 
vision was made. There was, however, an expression of inten- 
tion on the part of the people of that day, and it aimed at 
perpetuit3^ 



* President Lincoln, in what, I believe, was the last speech he made, used 
this language : " That question has not been nor yet is, a practically material 
one, and any discussion of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, 
can have no other effect than the mischievous one of dividing our friends." 



74: AEE THEY STATES STILL ? 

The Declaration of Independence in 1776 spoke of ns as " one 
people," for whom it became necessary to dissolve the political 
bands which connected them with another. 

The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 177S, declared 
themselves to be Ardcles of " perpetnal Union," and enacted 
that tlie_y should be " inviolably observed by every State, and 
the Union shall be perpetual."''^ 

The Constitntion, in its preamble, declares its object to be to 
" form a more perfect union," and to " secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity ;" and, in its enactments, 
prohibits any State from entering into treaty, alliance or confed- 
eration. 

It is manifest, therefore, that the spirit of the Constitution, 
and the intention of the wise and patriotic men who framed it, 
and of tlie States which adopted it, contemplated permanence. 
The right of any one State or of several, short of the whole, to 
secede from the Union and thus dissolve it, was in conflict with 
the very life and soul of what was then done, and would have 
made that work at once puerile and futile. 

That such was the vievv^ taken then, by the men of that day, 
is apparent from another consideration. The Articles of Con- 
federation, which thus aimed at "perpetual Union," were super- 
seded by the Constitution, but that was done by unanimous 
consent of all the States of the Confederacy ; and all of them 
ratified and adopted it as the means of forming a " more perfect 
union" of all. 

Therefore it is that there is no provision in the Constitution 
in conflict with this great purpose of perpetual union, and it is 
equally true that there is no express prohibition against the 
secession of one or more States. 

The men of that day were too wise to suppose that all wisdom 
was concentrated in them and that none was left for their pos- 



* Our State Legislature, in 1779, having previously passed "An Act of ac- 
cession to and approbation of certain proposed articles of confederation and 
perpetual Union," passed another law authorizing our delegates to Congress, 
"in behalf of this State, to unite for the final accomplishment of the said con- 
federation and perpetual Union," &:c. 



SUMMAKY. 75 

terlty, and, content with an explicit avowal of their purpose, 
they left it to future ages to meet the events which time might 
bring in its train, and to future wisdom to provide the remedy.* 

It is in such a condition that we now find ourselves, with 
power either by amendments of the constitution or by laws of 
Congress (within the limit of its powers) to provide any remedy 
which the emergency may demand. And we find nothing in 
the way of the exercise of that redeeming power but the abstrac- 
tions and refinements and subtle interpretations of the constitu- 
tion, M'hich, ushered into prominence at the close of the last 
century, have brought upon us in our day the disasters from 
M'hicli we have not yet fully recovered. 

Therefore it is that I say, away witli them ! For if they are to 
rule, emancipation is not half achieved— secession is not half 
tilled. 



*The origin and history of the right of nullification and secession will be 
found in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 179S; in Genl. Jackson's 
special message to Congress, in 1832, and in a report to the Legislature of 
New York in 1833, made by Gov. Tallmadge, but written by Martin Van 
Buren. 



T6 SUMMARY. 



CHAP. XII. 

Thus, Senator, have I completed the task whicli I assigned 
myself of examining, somewliat in detail, the various matters 
Avhich demand onr attention in the momentous work of recon- 
struction, and it seems to me that it would now be fitting to 
ofler to your consideration a brief, yet general summary of 
them all, 

A Siiinmary of the Wants and the Remedy. 

I. — Jhe Slaveholders and the Secessionist. 

They who were so ail through the war are so yet in heart, 
and will probably be so to the end of life with them. There is 
very little hope that there will ever be any very material change 
in them. Pride and habit alike forbid it. The safety and wel- 
fare of the country demand that their power to do any more 
mischief shall be utterly crushed out. To do this they are to be 
ultimately disfranchised, and in the meanwhile subjected to a 
military government. As to punishment for past offences, we 
need care little for that. The events themselves have caused, 
have brought their own punishment along with them. The con- 
trast between their past and their present condition must be 
terribly severe now, and must be more and more full of affliction 
while life may last. 

II. — The Loyal Men. 

For their protection a military government now, utterly 
beyond the reach of their enemies, and an ultimate transfer to 
them of all political power, and with it ample means of self- 
protection. 

This has already been provided for, and if it shall happen 



SUMMARY. 77 

tliat at any time the will of the nation, clearly expressed as it 
lias been at the ballot-box and through Congress, shall not be 
carried out in their behalf witli the ntniost fidelity, time will 
point out the remed^y which fhe nation has the will, and the 
power, and the constitutional right to adopt. All is initiated or 
done now that existing circumstances would seem to demand, 
nnless, perchance, it may be to give the assurance once and 
again, that the loyal men of the whole nation can never forget 
their compatriots in the seceding States. 

III.— The Freedmen. 

Their emancipation is already fully secured, and that by the 
strongest obligations known to our institutions. Their present 
relief and protection are already provided for through the Freed- 
man's Bureau and the military governments. Their ultimate 
enjoyment of the right of suffrage already devised, will afford 
them the same means of self-protection that we enjoy. 

Their education, their social condition, and the reorganiza- 
tion of their system of labor, are matters in respect to which 
much yet remains to be done. A recent instance of individual 
munificence, shows how confidently private charity may be re- 
lied upon. And as events occur, showing the necessity of fur- 
ther public action, it will not be wanting. But in respect to all 
three of these things, where the results must of necessity be the 
work of time, much more must depend on the action of the 
local rather than the national government. The latter can se- 
cure entire freedom of action to the former, and then the work 
must be completed at home. 

lY.—The Poor Whites. 

Their education and elevation must depend entirely upon the 
influences in their immediate vicinity. 

V. — The Anti-Slave?'}/ Men. 

Having secured emancipation, protection, and free sufi'rage to 
a greater number of human beings than were rendered independ- 



Y8 SUMMAEY. 

ent by the Revolution of 7G, tliej will be content, for the pre- 
sent, to wait and watch for the completion of the work they 
began. 

YI. — The Sympathizers with Secession, 

Time, alone, must do the work with them. It may bring to 
them " healing on its wings " or the condemnation of public 
opinion, in which there is no mercy, and from which there is no 
appeal. 

VII. — The Conservatives. 

This class is the least satisfied of any at the present condition 
of things. They are disgusted with the contemptuous and even 
insolent rejection by the South, of all oifers at conciliation. 
They are surprised that the civil power, which had been so 
liberally bestowed upon them, should not have been used even 
in the slightest degree for the purposes of reunion. They are 
alarmed at the necessity thus created, of withdrawing anywhere 
in the nation, civil power, and substituting military in its place. 
They dread the existence of a military despotism even for a day. 
They are pained at the destruction of their hojDe of a speedy res- 
toration of the Union, and at the indefinite postponement of its 
consummation. And they are distressed to observe that any mea- 
sure now adopted, must seem to be more temporary than perma- 
nent in its character. 



YIII. — Their Laljor System. 

The entire reorganization of so vast an interest is a work of 
time and importance. The emjjloyers and employed have each 
to learn a lesson entirely new to them, though always familiar 
to us, and that is, how to make voluntary labor a necessity, and 
how to render it most available. To do this, must require the 
establishment in their immediate neighborhood, and easily ac- 
cessible to both, of tribunals which can enforce the performance 
of contracts, and prevent the occurrence of pauperage from sheer 
idleness. To efi'ect this object most thoroughly, would seem to 



SUMMAEY. 79 

require the admission of the Negro to an equal participation 
with the white man in the administration of justice, and the 
establishment of many instruments of local government, familiar 
enough to us, but unknown among them. 



IX. — Their Social System. 

First and formost here,' is the necessity of rendering the 
marriage tie sacred, and illegitimacy detestable. This the law 
can do. All else must be the work of progressive refinement. 



X. — Education. 

At present this is dependent mainly on charitable efforts from 
abroad. This is far from being adequate to answer all the de- 
mands of the occasion. A system must be introduced among 
them like those whicli exist in the free States. It may be said, 
and truly too, that this will follow free suffrage. But it ought 
to precede or at least accompany the right, or confusion will 
follow. Such a system as we have in our State, Senator, ought 
to be an-ived at. Here, with a population of 3,831,777 we have 
a permanent educational fund of over $7,000,000 ; we expend 
over $0,500,000 a year in free education, and have nearly 12,000 
school houses, and out of 1,398,758 children between the ages 
of five and twenty-one, over 1,000,000 receive instruction, be- 
sides those in ])rofessional schools. 

It will be long before so enlarged a system can be produced 
at the South from its now crippled resources ; and its poverty 
and ignorance will have a mutually retarding effect, so that, 
unless extra territorial aid, of a more permanent and reliable 
nature than private charity, shall be afforded, it may be a long, 
long time before the 12,000,000 of the lately Confederated 
States, will be as well fitted to enjoy and exercise all the rights 
of citizenship as any other like number selected from any other 
part of the nation. 

The hurtful influence upon the general welfare of such a mass 
of " uninstruction" may be readily imagined. 



80 SUMMARY. 



XI. — National Patriotism , 

So generally prevalent at the South, and so long, has been the 
idea of a sectional patriotism, that it is much to be feared that 
even among the loyal there, it has not yet assumed its character 
of nationality ; and that among them, even, it is not now as broad 
and as enthusiastic as it is among us. Do their hearts warm as 
ours do at the words " I am an American" ? 

Among them, however, as well as in the colored population, 
the protection the nation is now affording, will produce and en- 
courage the growth of its national character. 

But what is there to produce this result among those, who, 
because of their participation in the rebellion, are now to be 
disfranchised ? Must we wait until they all die and a new gene- 
ration takes their place ? And must we, even in their succes- 
sors, find those, who like the Jacobites in Great Britain, cherished 
disloyalty as an heir-loom — a precious inheritance from the 
past 'i 

It is not the part of Avisdom to do so, but, on the other hand, 
in all our measures, to so keep open the door, that regenerated 
patriotism may enter either in the mass or by individuals. 



XII. — Sel/' Government. 

All these matters, industrial, social, educational and political, 
are necessary precedents to self government, and we must be- 
ware that Ave do not give it too soon or too irrevocable, so as to 
produce mischief, and put it out of our power to apply the 
necessary corrective, when an abuse of it shall occur. It is not 
difficult to imagine what a long train of evils may grow out of 
our neglect to take the proper precautions. Xow is the time to 
do that. That wisdom is not worth much that does not look 
beyond the footsteps of the present moment. 

All must contemplate the ultimate restoration of self-govern, 
nient to the Confederate States. It is thus alone that a harmo- 
nious union can be brought about ; thus alone that the public 
opinion, which revolts at the idea of a military government, can 



CONCLUSION. 81 

bo satisfied, and thus alone that the injunction of the Constitu- 
tion tliat " the United States shall guarantee to every State in 
this Union a Republican form of Government," can be obeyed. 
The mad infatuation of tlie South may retard the advent of this 
result, but that it must come in the end, is a point from which 
the American people cannot bo induced to depart, and to which 
even the South will in due time approach. 



Conclusion. 

Thus, Senator, have I spread before you the result of my 
reflections upon the great work now before the Nation. If 
thereby I shall aid you or any other one, in comprehending or 
dealing with it, I shall be truly glad. That it will ultimately 
be finished in such manner as will I'odound to our honor and 
the advance of freedom throughout the world I have the fullest 
confidence. I ma}' not hope to live to behold the end, but if I 
do not, I may at least hope to be able to look down upon it from 
my future home with satisfaction, augmented by feeling that I 
have contributed — be it little or much, yet all in my power to 
the result ; for that was a duty which I owed alike to my coun- 
try and to freedom. 

J. W. EDMONDS. 

JYeio Fori:, March 4, ISGT. 



APPENDIX. 



From the Boston Daily Advertiser. 



Testimony of Generals SCHOFIELI), SICKLES, WOOD 
and THOMAS. 



GENERAL SCHOFIELD'S OPINION. 

Question — How is it about punishing offences by means of 
civil law in Virginia, when thcj have been committed npon men 
who have the reputation of being Union men, or Freedmen, in 
respect to offences committed upon soldiers? Aiisiccr — I do not 
think there are any cases in which offences against soldiers have 
gone bfeore the State Courts at all. There are very few cases 
reported to me in which offences have been committed against 
men alleged to be Union men. I know some one or two of these 
cases, where persons report alleged injustice in relations of that 
kind ; that is, failures on the part of the State Courts to punish 
men who have committed assaults on Union men ; but that dis- 
tinction is comparatively rare in Virginia, as far as I have been 
able to learn. But cases of hostility and outrage of one kind 
and another by white men upon Freedmen are common, and in 
almost all such cases the State Courts fail to do justice, that is, 
fail to punish white men for assaults and outrages committed 
upon Freedmen. 

Q. What is the difficulty? Is it in arrest and punisliment, or 
in the disposition of the men who try them? A. In the dispo- 
sition of magistrates and jurors. AVhen it is a civil question 
alone, a question of money, uninfluenced by any other question, 
I think they almost always do justice to the Freedmen ; but when 
that question is affected by the allegation upon the part of white 
men of insubordination, or disrespect, or insolence on the part of 
the colored man, that allegation will justify him, in the opinion 
of the local magistrates, or jurors, for inflicting upon Freedmen 



84 APPENDIX. 

any punishment he may see fit, either by driving them off the 
phantation without wages, or, as has been done in some eases, 
shooting them. 

Q. The principal difficulty, then, is in the administration of 
justice among Freedmen? A. That is the difficulty. 

Q. Can you discover no remedy in the Courts ? A. I think at 
present no speedy remedy can be expected from the Civil Courts 
of Virginia. Report says that the higher Courts, almost with- 
out exception, do justice as between whites and blacks ; but 
that the lower magistrates, who are elected by the people, and 
the jurors, scarcely ever do justice to the black man against the 
white, 

Q. And these lower Courts are the principal ones that try crim- 
inal cases? A. Yes, sir. They dispose of nearlj^ all cases in 
which the black men are concerned. The black man is too poor 
to carry it to the higher Courts. Practically, if the employer on 
a plantation chooses to drive the colored man off without his 
wages, alleging that he was insolent, or insubordinate, or neglect- 
ful of his duty, he is without remed_y. 



GENERAL SICKLES'S OPINION". 

Q. AVhat is the probability of justice being done in the Courts 
of South Carolina, in cases where a citizen kills a soldier? 

A In my judgment, the bias of the people is so strong against 
the presence of garrisons in the State, and against soldiers, that 
you could not find a jury in the State that would convict a man 
for killing a Union soldier. 

Q. No matter wliat the testimony? A. No, sir, I do not 
think a garrison can remain in South Carolina or North Carolina, 
if we are to rely upon the Civil Courts to protect the troops and 
property of the United States, nor if we are to turn over to the 
Civil Courts for trial, soldiers and officers who may be charged 
with offences. I do not think they could expect justice at the 
hands of the Southern Courts and juries. 

Q. Within your knowledge, has any soldier suffered at the 
hands of citizens, and a citizen doing the M'rong been indicted 
therefor before the Coui-ts and escape punishment? A. They do 
not even indict them. They do not arrest anybodj' nor prose- 
cute anybodv for such offences ; yet soldiers and officers have 
been in some instances wounded and in other instances killed. 
They have been fired upon in repeated instances within the last 
year and a half, and no one has been prosecuted or punished for 
it by the civil authorities. Public teams and wagons have been 
seized on the highway's within five miles of Columbia, the capi- 



APPENDIX. 85 

tal of the State. The teamsters have been tied to trees and rob- 
bed, the horses and liarness taken oft" and the wag'ons burned, jet 
no notice has been taken of such occurrences. It has not been 
possible for us, M'ith all the industry and energy at onr connnand, 
to arrest the perpetrators. Horses have been run off miles and 
miles, and not one person on the road would give information of 
any of the offenders. We could not recover the horses, nor get 
any clue to the offenders, nor make any arrests ; nor did the civil 
authorities. 

Q. It is upon facts thus stated that you predicate your opinion. 
A. Yes, sir. If I send a detachment to arrest anyl)ody, the ap- 
proach of my detachment is signalled by trumpets, flags, &c , 
during the day, and by light at night. Thus the approach of 
my force is notified to an accused man miles away, and so he 
makes his escape. I do not mean to be understood as saying 
that in no part of North or South Carolina, and in no Court could 
a fair trial Ije had. The question is general, and the answer is 
intended to be general. I mean to say that there would be fail- 
ure of justice in so many cases, and in so many localities, that 
you could not rely upon that sort of administration for the secu- 
rity of the lives and property and rights of the people and the 
troops. In North Carolina the most frequent complaints arose 
from prosecutions of Union men for occurrences during the war. 
Union men have been wronged and severely dealt with, while 
men who participated in the rel)ellion and sympathized with it, 
if prosecuted at all, got oft". I think the Judges of the higher 
Courts desire to hold the scales of justice even ; but the men you 
would have on the jury, in the case of a Union man, orUnion offi- 
cer, or Union soldier, would not heed the Court or the law. 

Q. You say the same thing in regard to the civil government 
of the State of South Carolina, the Governor and other officers, 
that you have said in regard to the higher Judges of the State? 
A. The Governor has given me every assurance of his desire to 
cooperate with me in the arrest and punishment of offenders, 
but he has not been able to do much. He responds promptly to 
every suggestion. I may state in confirmation of what 1 have 
said with regard to the inferior magistrates and ministerial offi- 
cers of justiiic, that the Governor, in his efforts to assist me, has 
been obliged to sit as magistrate himself and to issue warrants, 
because he could not rely upon any magistrate in his region. 
lie has l)een obliged himself to designate persons to execute war- 
rants, offering private rewards to them in cases of success, because 
he could not rely upon the constabulary. I have no fault to find 
with the Governor of the State, nor with the high officials, gen- 
erally. I believe that those gentlemen, at least" most of them, 
sincerely deplore the existing state of things, and see as clearly 



86 APPENDIX. 

as any one how injurious it is to their iuterests and their good 
name. But they seem to find themselves powerless to apply any 
adequate remedy. 

Q. How do you find it in cases where alleged oiFence is com- 
mitted by Union men, or Freedmen ? A. In that case officials 
make arrests. They are vigilant, zealous and successful in those 
cases. It is this particularly that impairs confidence. If the 
oflfender whose arrest is desired is a man of property, and was 
on the other side during the war, they cannot find him. It is 
impossible to get information about him. But if the alleged 
offender is a negro or some man who has not come up to their 
mark during the war, every newspaper trumpets the offence with 
a description of the man, every road swarms with hunters, every 
forest and swamp is searched to secure him. A prodigious de- 
gree of activity and zeal is apparent, and seldom fails. In such 
cases, not only sheriffs and constables, but everybody turns out, 
and there is a general hue and cry, exclaiming, " Let us catch 
the fellow," " "Where is my shot gun V '' Where is my horse ?" 
" Which way has he gone, let us go after him." If I could 
have such assistants in pursuing ottenders, I should never have 
any trouble in making arrests. I have many times appealed to 
the leading men to get on their horses and help us find some of 
these fellows, to do it for their own sakes, for the sake of peace 
and quiet, so that we may not have to keep garrisons among 
them. Governor Benham and many other prominent gentlemen 
have assured me that they would be glad to assist me if they 
could obtain the necessary cooperation in their neighborhood, 
but that this could not be done. 



GENERAL WOOD'S OPINIOK 

Q. I wish to inquire as to the frequency of criminal offences 
against Union men. United States soldiers and Freedmen in Mis- 
sissippi ? A. The commission of such crimes has been frequent. 
It might be well to add that the commission of crime, generally, 
has been frequent; but more particularly against persons of union 
proclivities, and Northern men who have emigrated to Missis- 
sippi since the termination of the trouble, and against Freedmen 
and colored persons. Murder was quite a frequent offence against 
Freedmen, everywhere in that connnunity, and the commission 
of crimes of a lesser grade, such as beating and assaults, was still 
more freqent than the commission of murder. 

Q. State as to the machinery for bringing people to justice in 
the Civil Courts ; whether adequate or inadequate ? A. The 



APPENDIX. 87 

criminal laws of the State of Mississippi are, I think very simi- 
lar to the criminal laws of other States, but the great trouble 
grew out of the manner in which the executive and judicial offi- 
cers performed their duties. They do not take proper measures 
to bring criminals to justice. They do not use that vigilance as 
magistrates investigating these cases, in issuing warrants of ar- 
rest and causing the constables and sheriffs to execute these war- 
rants, that is essential to tlie proper administration of justice. 
"When cases come into the higher Courts, some of the better class 
of Judges are more disposed to do justice and to have the law 
faithfully executed ; but my observation has been that justice 
cannot be administered with the public sentiment such as it is 
against black people and Union men. 

Q. Could you suggest any remedy for these difficulties? 

A, The result of my observation led me to the conclusion that 
there should, l)y legislation of the government, be established 
some system by which when the local Courts fail to administer 
justice, some higher power could be brought into play in order 
to secure it. 



GENERAL THOMAS'S OPINION. 

Q. Will you state, in relation to offences against Union men, 
or Freedmen, or soldiers in your department generally, whether 
they are frequent or infrequent, and what class of offences is 
most so ? A. Offences against Freedmen occur quite frequently. 
Offences against Union men also occur quite frequently. Of- 
fences against soldiers do not occur so frequently. 

Q. Please specify, if you are able, the relative frequency of 
these offences in the different States witiiin your command du- 
ring last year. A. They occurred in Kentucky, all over the 
State ; In Tennessee, they occurred in particular sections, such 
as West Tennessee, and in two or three sections of Middle Ten- 
nessee. In East Tennessee I do not know of more than one sec- 
tion where they occurred very frequently. These classes of of- 
fences are quite common in Georgia, and they occur frequently 
in Alabama. Until recently they were quite common^in Missis- 
sippi. 

Q. Were they increasing or diminishing? A. That is a diffi- 
cult question to answer. The impression made upon my mind 
is that they would occur frequently if the occasion presented it- 
self. If one citizen regarded as a secessionist had any fault to 
find with a Union man or a Freedman, he would be apt to take 
some measures of revenge, or persecute him in some way. 



88 APPENDIX. 

Q. Whether the civil autliorities are nsnallj prompt or suc- 
cessful in punishment of offences sncli as you have spoken of I 

A. I cannot say that it is habitual for them to show a clispo- 
siiion to brin*]:; these people to justice. They do it sometimes, 
because they know that the oifenders will be arrested under Gen. 
Grant's order No. 44, and held until they are tried. 

Q. You reply you give the order to arrest them? A. Yes, 
and hold them until we can secure a trial. We cannot secure 
an impartial trial. We can only insist that they shall have an 
impartial trial. They proceed to trial in many cases, but the re- 
sult shows that it is not impartial. I do not think the civil au- 
thorities are disposed to administer impartial justice, if left to 
their own will. 

Q. What is the difficulty ? Is it in failing to arrest the of- 
fenders or in their trial ? A. Failing to arrest, unless their atten- 
tion is called to it, and then the trial is generally sluri'ed over. 

Q. Does that observation pertain to all the States you have 
desiguated equally, — Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Iventucky 
and portions of Tennessee? A. The practice is about the same 
in each. Tlie sentiment of these different localities is about the 
same, and the prejudices against Union men and Freedmen 
about the same. 

Q. Did you hear of any ii:istances where offences against Freed- 
men have, within the last year, been punished in Georgia? 

A. I cannot say that I know of a single instance where they 
have punished any one for a serious oilence against Freedmen. 
They have been punished, sometimes, for slight offences, where 
the punishment is merely a fine ; but in cases where the penalty 
extends to imprisonment, or summary punishment, I do not 
know of a single instance. 

Q. Have murders in Georgia been numerous within the last 
year ? A. Yes, sir, quite numerous. 

Q. From your knowledge, wliat would be the probability, if 
murder was committed in that State by a white man upon a 
Freedman, of his being brought before a jury and convicted ? 
A. I do not believe there is much chance of convicting a resi- 
dent, or citizen of Georgia for murder, if the victim was a Union 
man or a Negro. If the murderer was a Union man, or a 
Negro, they would convict him very speedily ; or a maTi who 
had moved into Georgia since the war, and was known as a 
Northern man or a Union man. 

Q. Then if these people were left to themselves, simply, would 
the ordinary modes of justice, as administered there by the Civil 
Courts, be sufficient for the protection of persons of that part of 
the population of Georgia ? A. Not as administered now by 
these people. 



ArrENDix. 



-69 



Q. Do the obsGi'vations you make in reference to Georgia ap- 
ply to other States with equal force? A. With equal force^ 
with the exception of the districts I have named. 

Q. Can you suggest any remedy for this state of things? 

A. The remedy 1 would suggest would be the establishment 
of solne supervisory authority in these States, with power to ad- 
vise and insist on the impartial administration of justice, accom- 
panied by a sufficient force, if necessar}-, to induce the people to 
feel that the authority is able to enforce its advice or instructions. 

Q. As time runs on, and ordinary justice is denied to a large 
share of the people of these States, is there a fair chance of the 
state of affairs there improving ? A. I think not, because enter- 
prising people, knowing the state of affairs to exist in that coun- 
try, would be discouraged from going there and entering into 
business. I don't thinlv the people tliemselves have either the 
energy or the disposition to undertake legitimate enterprises, 
that is, enterprises resulting in improvement of the condition of 
affairs in the State and bringing wealth to the country. 



NOTE. 

After this letter was written and while it was in the printer"'s hands, I 
received from Senator Morgan, the report of the Reconstruction Comnaittce 
to the 39th Congress. It is an octavo volume of about 800 pages, and con- 
tains the evidence taken before them. The general committee of 12 was 
divided into 4 sub-committees of 3 each, by whom the testimony was taken, 
in respect to particular portions of territorj- attached to each. 

It is very much to be desired that that testimony should be made known 
to all the people. It shows a state of things in the Southern country, since 
the war, far worse than I had any idea of, and removes from ray mind, the 
apprehension that I have occasionally uttered, that perhaps I was exagger- 
ating the evils existing there. It shows, also, in a stronger light even than 
I have presented them, the difficulties that there are in the tas'c of a har- 
monious reunion. 



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